UK industrial designers Dick Powell and Richard Seymour had a television programme called Better By Design in which they designed products immersively. They also had some other techniques. One was to seek overlooked advances in material science. Another was to seek a "standing wave" in product design. This is an element in a design which is blindly and repeatedly copied.

You may benefit from the most widespread example of this analysis because their company, Seymour Powell, inverted the cordless kettle. The initial design worked in one orientation. Copies are omni-directional.