After i finished my product i asked a random selection of people to have a look, assemble, disassemble the bee box and give me some feedback to help me evaluate its success and highlight any faults. I thought this was important aspect of the evaluation process as i think I'm too close to my product to make un unbiased review.
Summery of results
A couple of the people said that would have liked it if the product came with a plant. Most of these did recognise that it would be impractical to provide a plant along with the flat pack product, which is also my reasoning for not doing so. I did like the idea that someone suggested about providing a packet of seeds to plant and is something i could consider, however my reservation about doing this would be that the plant would take a while to reach maturity and be ready in time for the bees flight period. Also consumers would still need to go and buy soil to plant the seeds i,n so providing seeds would still not spare them a trip to the shops or extra expenses. If buying the plant is an issue for people then they need not even buy a plant as the product works perfectly fine without a plant. Its purpose was to be an additional feature, and back up use for the product if bee do not successful nest in the tubes.
The majority of the feed back confirmed that the product is attractive, of adequate size, easy to assemble and disassemble and provided sufficient attachments to be hung up. The only negative feedback i received was that the product could have been bigger and looked more natural, however the person who wrote this has a big garden and is an active bee keeper which is not who my product seeks to target. The reason for the modern look of my product is that natural, wooden bee boxes are already available so if i used this in my product it would not have been original or fitted with my idea of being postable. It is the people who have small outside spaces who have not used bee products before who will benefit from this product which is reflected in the other positive questionnaires i received back.