Touch-and-feel mouse is Irish company's latest innovation

It seems only a few years since the height of gaming sophistication was the clunky sound effects from a Space Invaders game embedded in a bar table.

But advances since then have made the Irish among the most avid computer gamers in the world, with the Republic notching up proportionally the second-highest number of users after Japan.

An Irish design company is about to further enhance players' electronic enjoyment with a new mouse it has designed for PC gamers. The WingMan force feedback mouse has been developed to feed back sensations from the game, like sliding, pushing, and shooting into the player's hand for a more realistic experience.

The device was designed specially for Logitech, a computer peripherals company which focuses on-easy-to-use computer tools.

This is Design Partner's eighth collaboration with Logitech, and it has been behind the design of most commercially-available computer mice, including those that come as standard with any PC.

Since 1994 Logitech has sent Design Partners the conceptual outline of its latest development, and Design Partners has been charged with converting it into a user-friendly tool. Each project takes about a year to complete.

"Sometimes the project is a pile of wires and a chip and we've to make something tangible out of it. That means we are responsible for everything about the product you see, touch and feel," says Mr Brian Stephens, managing director of Design Partners.

The designs have been recognised internationally, and it has garnered awards from Glen Dimplex, Windows Magazine, PC Computing and the San Jose Mercury News.

Logitech's Cordless Wheel Mouse and Cordless Desktop were entirely designed out of Design Partners' Bray premises. The Wheel Mouse is based on wireless digital radio technology, and can be operated out of the PC's line of sight.

It is currently the best-selling mouse in Europe, while the Cordless Desktop which features a cordless mouse and keyboard holds 29 per cent of market share in the US.

The use of marble technology won Design Partners a host of industry awards last year. Its TrackMan mouse was developed specifically for computer users seeking on-screen precision in the areas of computer aided design (CAD), mapping and ASIC development.

A marble ball at the centre of the mouse eliminates all moving parts, making it easier to clean and maintain. A miniature camera within the device measures its relative position to the ball and reflects the information on screen.

Rapid advances in CAD programming technology have been critical in helping Design Partners become more central to the design process and gain an advantage over its competitors.

"The real cost of any R&D project is time, and speed to market is crucial - it is the difference between being first or second. In the past we were part of a much bigger food chain, now we can send information directly to mould-makers which cuts out intermediaries. We used to lose control earlier in the process, now the designer's role is increasingly important in what we see, feel and touch," Mr Stephens says. The returns to Design Partners have done much to escalate the business from its early days as a two-man operation. This year the company will achieve £800,000 (#1,015,790) in sales, and Mr Stephens predicts this figure will rise to £1 million next year.

The Design Partners' facility operates like a microcosm of an entire manufacturing process, from sketched outlines to finished product. The business has grown to a staffing level of 14, with activities divided between industrial design, mechanical engineering and model making. Once a product's look has been devised, a rough clay, foam or Plasticine mould is made and the proposed product is then assessed by focus groups brought in to try out the new design. The product is modified accordingly and scanned through a numerically-controlled reader which renders its co-ordinates in 3-D form on computer.

Once this information is available in digital format it can be transmitted anywhere in the world. However, Design Partners tends to work with Irish-based companies which offer outside expertise. These include a rapid prototyping company which creates physical versions of the product at various stages, and a stress-analysis company which can electronically ascertain the durability of products. Design Partners uses Pro-Engineering CAD CAM programs for all its on-screen design, and this is the language employed by many of its business partners.

Despite being located away from Logitech's industrial design centre in Cork and its R&D centre in Switzerland, it keeps in constant contact via the Internet, ISDN and e-mail. Mr Stephens also sees the advantage in having a physical presence in distant markets, and plans are under way to establish a marketing presence in the US, probably in the Silicon Valley region.

"There is no perfect location worldwide, but we have missed opportunities with existing US clients by not having people on the ground," Mr Stephens says.

Further opportunities in the US have opened up since Design Partners recently won one of the design industry's more prestigious awards, the ID Annual Design Review.

It was awarded a design distinction in the consumer product category for a Party Grill Stove it designed for French company, Campingaz. Campingaz is owned by Sunbeam, a US consumer products manufacturer. Design Partners hopes the distinction will lead to further collaborations.

Mr Stephens attributes advances in technology to his company's ability to compete with much bigger design houses for business: "None of these projects would have been `do-able' without the technology. Twenty years ago people and machines designed in straight lines. With 3D, people can design in more useful forms."