Product Form Evolution

Companies are coming round to the idea that function and form are complimentary factors in improving the user’s experience of a product and competing in today’s saturated consumer goods markets. However, consumer perception of form is constantly changing, and this manifests itself in the evolving forms of the products that they adopt. From clothes to cameras to cars, change in form is inevitable, and design teams must account for these trends in their product design and development strategies. Through literature, semi-structured interviews with design and trend practitioners, and an archival case study of mobile phone evolution, the authors have developed theories about the continuities that occur in product forms over time, and the forces that can disrupt this behaviour. They then go on to suggest how this view of form as evolving trajectories can benefit future product design strategies.

Deploying and Adapting an Indoor Positioning System in the Clinical Setting

We are living in an era where the demands on our healthcare system are relentlessly rising while at the same time key resources, such as, the number of physicians and time available to see patients, are declining. In order to diagnose what is wrong and treat it appropriately we need to be able to objectively measure and describe how our healthcare system behaves. At Massachusetts General Hospital, an innovative project weaves together industrial design, operations research, outcomes research with emerging technologies to provide a means for objectively and reliably measuring time in the primary care setting. The RFID in Clinical Workflow Project aims to provide a tool with which to understand resource allocation and to shape appropriate and effective policy. In order to successfully incorporate the use of an emerging technology that enables accurate and reliable measurement into the demanding and critical clinical setting, the multidisciplinary team used a hybrid of design techniques sourced from the different disciplines represented on the team.

Transformal Role of Product Design in Singapore’s Transition to a Service Economy

Singapore, a city state of 4.8 million people, located at the tip of the Malaysian Peninsula, was founded in 1819, when Sir Stamford Raffles of the East India Company established a trading settlement in Singapore. The meeting point for Chinese, Malays, Indians, Arabs, Europeans and others on their journey through the southern seas, Singapore achieved its initial economic success through international trade as a free port and free market. Given the status of an independent country in 1965, Singapore suddenly found itself in a struggle to survive. It’s small population and scarce resources meant that regional and world markets were larger than the domestic market, presenting the government and its policymakers with distinctive economic challenges and opportunities. This chapter tries to recount the policies and subsequent actions put in place in Singapore from the 1960s till the present, promoting the creative industry, including product design, in order to transform a market dependent economy into a service centered economy. This chapter also discusses if and how such a ‘planned intervention’ played an important role in building up the resources and infrastructure within Singapore and in attracting multi-national companies to locate their R&D and design facilities in Singapore, pointing to where it has succeeded and where it has not.

Understand Complex Design Problems Using Systems Thinking

This chapter provides a brief overview of systems theory and suggests that product designers could use systems theory and systems dynamics models to improve our understanding of complex Product Design research problems, to anticipate how and where changes in these dynamically evolving systems might occur and how they might interact with the current system to produce a new system with new behaviors, and to identify leverage points within the system where potential policy or design process changes might be introduced to produce effective solutions to these problems with minimum policy resistance. By investigating the current and future trends of the application of systems theory in Product Design research, this chapter invites multidisciplinary discussions of these topics.

Rediscovering Design Education as a Social Constructivist Foundation for Innovative Design Thinking

Design has been described by Bruno Latour as the missing masses, and tellingly as “nowhere to be said and everywhere to be felt” (2005: 73). Traditionally, not only objects, but design’s presence in general has gone largely unnoticed by the public, but that is changing, due, in considerable part, to the ubiquitous presence of computing technology. Design, as representative of unnoticed and neutral objects, is no longer feasible, but design, as a participative presence in the lives of its users, is fast gaining ground in our complex society. Designers are no longer fully in control of the design process, meaning design practice, and as a result design education must change to adapt to the increasing pace at which different social groups are evolving new ways of communicating and living.

Implementation of Rapid Manufacturing Systems in the Jewellery Industry in Brazil

This chapter presents the rapid prototyping and manufacturing concepts applied as means to reducing time between jewellery designs and manufacturing process. Different processes on jewellery modelling production are presented. Nowadays, the use of technologies as CAD/CAM - Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing in high production companies are very disseminated. However, the implementation of these resources at the design and manufacturing processes of jewels and fashion accessories, in small and medium size businesses, is still insipient. As reference, is presented the situation observed in small and medium companies located in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Embedded RFID Solutions Challenges for Product Design and Development

Full traceability of products is extremely difficult, although it has been sought after for as long as production, distribution and sales chains exist. Electronic traceability methods, such as RFID technology, have been proposed as a possible solution to this problem. In the specific case of RFID, the number of applications that promote innovative solutions in retail and other areas has been continuous growing. However, RFID tags are mostly placed externally on a surface of products or their packages. This is appropriate for logistics, but not for other applications, such as those involving user interaction. In those, not only is the placement of the RFID tag more complex, but it is also necessary that the tag is not visible or not directly accessible, to prevent accidental damage and intentional abuse. This certainly imposes challenges to manufacturing, but mainly creates new challenges to the development of new products and re-design of existing ones. This chapter presents some insights and what we consider to be the two main approaches to incorporating RFID technology into consumer products.

Empathic Design Research Strategies

Demographics are shifting. People are living longer and are expecting a higher quality of life than previous generations. Over a typical lifespan we will develop a range of disabilities, which are no longer perceived as a barrier to having a good quality of life. User expectation of products is growing which suggests a balanced approach to functionality is more important than ever. Rather than designing for the users, we need to be designing intimately with them to ensure that more intuitive design outcomes are generated. Ideally we hope to see people with disabilities designing for the wider population, which will push this model more towards design by. Empathic design research is a strategy that relies on the end user being an active partner in the designing process, a co-creator of knowledge. The concepts of empathy, empathic horizon, and the material landscape are illustrated through the discussion of a pilot design course within a university context. Using this approach, students with physical (visible) disabilities and product design students worked together designing everyday products. This empathic approach highlights research strategies that can support more effective design outcomes.

Creative and Visualization Tools in Context of Design

The chapter in the broader sense will look in the area of creativity, creative process, and creative product. Specifically we shall look at the aspects of a creative product, discuss on thought process of the designers with focus on creative and visualization tools. Creative tools will be looked in context of changing mindset or assumptions, redefining problems, developing ideational fluency and bringing flexibility in thinking. Visualization tools such as sketches, storyboards, rough models, developing scenarios for the usage of proposed concepts etc will be discussed in parallel to creative tools serving as aids to externalize thought processes. Creative and visualization tools complement each other in enhancing the designer’s creativity as well as help them come out of the stuckness feeling that they encounter while addressing design problems. Practicing the tools rather than being aware of them is important and the chapter will demonstrate the application of these tools with examples.

Interdisciplinary Interaction for the Early Stages of Product and Service Development

Saturated markets require user value through services and mass customised differentiation instead of mere products. This increases the significance of integrated innovation in the early stages of complex value offerings. Front end development combines the multidisciplinary professional perspectives and user insight in a cost effective way. Truly interdisciplinary interaction is reached through intrinsic motivation, shared goals and understanding. Experience for structuring the multidisciplinary front end innovation comes from the INNOstudio® concept created by the D’ART Design Resource Centre in the North Karelia University of Applied Sciences. This concept is about service and methods facilitating innovation sessions. Process support for communication, exploration, problem space definition and further development is provided by moving from abstract thinking into external observables – scenarios, sketches, or models. Innovative value concepts require both divergent, generative thinking and convergent, analytical thinking. Diverse methods support generative ideation, exploring future opportunities and user relevance or analysing the problem space.