Lucas Iezzi, EDI '24Mechanical Engineering Designer, IDEO
Alumni Interview
Tell us what your current title is and what your role entails.
My current title is Mechanical Engineering Designer and I work on the Play Lab Toy Invention team. My team invents and prototypes novel toy concepts and pitches them to toy companies. My main role on the team is building prototypes and developing designs to the point where our client’s can take them directly to their manufacturing partners. Other responsibilities include participating in brainstorms, conducting user research with kids and families, and creating pitch videos to concisely tell the story of our concepts to our clients. The work is fast paced and fun with new projects every 2 weeks or so.
When you started EDI, did you know what industry you wanted to work in?
When I started EDI I knew that I wanted to work in physical product and I had a dream to work in the toy industry. As I went through the EDI program I came to learn the things that made me want to work on toys (creating a sense of joy in users and building physical interactions that capture that joy) can be found in many other product spaces as well.
Tell us about an EDI course that made an impact on you.
Designing Product Interactions (DPI) with Craig Sampson gave me the language and practice to break down what makes good and satisfying physical interactions with objects and has helped me to create rich experiences for people when interacting with my prototype models. Getting a mechanism to have just the right amount of snappiness or a having a good sound to accompany pressing a button can be the cherry on top that sells a concept through its prototype (when combined with good story telling as well). I use the kind of thinking taught in this class every day to both create pithy physical models and to capture familiar physical interactions from outside of toys to capture new play experiences in toyetic objects.
What is one lesson you learned during your EDI journey that has stuck with you?
One of my biggest takeaways from EDI is the value of talking with users directly. It can be easy to feel like you understand a user’s experience through secondary research alone, but the information you get from interviewing users is so much more rich, especially if you can get them to interact with a prototype (or several). As a somewhat introverted person I have found the idea of interviewing users to be intimidating, but with the right questions I’ve found getting users to just talk about their experiences is conversationally very easy and can yield valuable insights you may not have found elsewhere. And even when an interview may feel like it didn’t go well or was awkward, it often still has some great nuggets to be extracted.
What was your EDI thesis project and what inspired you to pursue it?
For my thesis project I focused on the experience of the remote worker and designed a portable computer workstation to enable them to take full advantage of the remote lifestyle and escape their at home office setup. The workstation consisted essentially of a monitor and docking station built into a backpack for portability with built in power banks to support extended periods of untethered working. This project was inspired by seeing my partner struggle with her remote work setup in a shared apartment in Chicago. As a hybrid worker in my current role I find myself thinking about this project often and have made several iterations on it since graduating.
What advice do you have for an EDI student interested in working in your industry?
Prototype early and prototype often. Building quick sacrificial prototypes early in the design process can be a very powerful tool for further understanding the problem space not just finding a solution. The big watch out when building early prototypes is don’t get too invested (they are sacrificial), and try to build multiple options at similar fidelity to avoid bias. An added benefit of prototyping often is practicing prototyping makes your prototypes better over time, get in those reps. A good series of prototypes showing a concept’s evolution from rough to refined makes for an incredible portfolio piece in my industry.
