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Showing papers in "Design Journal in 2000"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss soft design, and then examin... how can such strategies and methodologies be incorporated into the curriculum to help students imbue a new product with qualities that implicitly reflect the emotional needs of the target consumer.
Abstract: Consumer products fulfil a variety of needs. Products do not exist to merely perform tasks, they satisfy other functional requirements. These include aspirations, cultural, social and emotional needs. There is currently interest in the emotional relationship between a product and its user. It is important that the designer can empathise with specific user groups in order for their designs to create this emotional relationship.User-Centred Design is concerned with more than functional issues. Major manufacturing companies such as Sony, Philips and Apple Macintosh are already applying responsive design methods to meet perceived consumer needs. How is design education encouraging prospective designers to engage with User-Centred Design strategies and methodologies? How can such strategies and methodologies be incorporated into the curriculum to help students imbue a new product with qualities that implicitly reflect the emotional needs of the target consumer? This paper discusses soft design, and then examin...

95 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
John Wood1
TL;DR: The authors re-design academic writing protocols for design education, adopting a more empathetic model to make writing more like designing for a specified client, which may be useful in the competitive culture of bureaucratic work.
Abstract: Historically, the culture of design education reflects an uneasy liaison between the mediaeval monastic (‘book’) and the crafts guilds (‘design studio’) traditions. For this reason it has been difficult to integrate both modes of knowledge in design education. Common misunderstandings about ‘scholastic rigour’ are symptomatic of this confusion. ‘Rigorous’ writing is fundamentally rule-based and organizational, and can therefore be at odds with the situated, opportunistic judgements involved with much design practice. We should therefore re-design academic writing protocols for design education.By thinking about ‘rigour’ we may absolve it, perhaps adopting a more empathetic model to make writing more like designing for a specified client. The standard school essay implies a 180° relationship between authors and their unknown readers. It is profoundly linear, fact-based and rhetorical, therefore it may be useful in the competitive culture of bureaucratic work. For this reason, we need better practices of ‘s...

63 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the origins of the concept of sustainable consumption are traced and the potential implications for new product development and design are explored, focusing on the environmental impact of consumer products (as distinct from packaging).
Abstract: This paper traces the origins of the concept of sustainable consumption and identifies some key theoretical and practical concerns. Distinguishing sustainable consumption from green consumerism, the potential implications for new product development and design are explored. The focus is on the environmental impact of consumer products (as distinct from packaging). It is suggested that while a product-centred approach may underlie green consumerism, sustainable consumption implies ‘sufficiency’ as well as ‘efficiency,’ and broader psychological and socio-cultural considerations must be taken into account. Designers will need to respond to increasing pressure for consumption patterns that have a reduced environmental impact.

54 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results of the analysis indicated that the advanced students produced a number of thinking sketches by moving very quickly from one design idea to another, without articulating their design ideas in depth.
Abstract: This study analyses expertise in weaving design by examining how four professionally experienced designers and four advanced students of weaving design solved a professional weaving design task. Th...

21 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the current consumer trend towards the aestheticization of everday life and the significance of a desire to consume experiences within product design, and conclude that craft qualities in products appear to provide relevant communicative means for design in the contemporary era of experiential consumption.
Abstract: The consumer's perception of the significance of an object to them as an individual has become of primary importance to the designer. This paper describes the current consumer trend towards the aestheticization of everday life and the significance of a desire to consume experiences within product design. It aims to address questions that arise through the designer's need to facilitate the consumer's desire to imbue objects with qualities that are meaningful to them within the currency of the contemporary aesthetics of everyday life. The paper goes on to examine the characteristics of craft products, and their ability to take on and embody the personal and individual experiences of the consumer. The author concludes that craft qualities in products appear to provide relevant communicative means for design in the contemporary era of experiential consumption. Craft qualities are discussed in the light of new consumer research that draws on the fields of psychology, sociology and marketing, and presents us wi...

16 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors explored the role of social interactions as an aid to reflection in three design school studios which both establish for participants what the right thing is and are the means by which the right things are communicated.
Abstract: During the research described in this paper, students often expressed the concern to know if they were ‘doing the right thing’ during studio-based project work. This poses the questions: how can students find out what the right thing is and how is the right thing decided? Social constructivism tells us that who we are and what we know to be right are fabricated by our social interactions with others and this is particularly true where there is no physical means of evaluating reality. This paper explores the role of social interactions as an aid to reflection in three design school studios which both establish for participants what the right thing is and are the means by which the right thing is communicated.

16 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The aim of the module is to enable students to practise the use of data collection techniques that provide evidence for their design decision-making and to raise the awareness of industrial design students to the demographic shift towards older consumers and the needs of disabled people.
Abstract: This paper describes the introduction of a new module to an undergraduate degree programme for industrial designers in the Department of Design and Technology at Loughborough University. The implementation of the module and its subsequent outcomes will be related to the changing professional needs of graduating industrial designers.The aim of the module is to enable students to practise the use of data collection techniques that provide evidence for their design decision-making. It is also to emphasize the industrial designer's role in the development of the desirability of a product within a given social group, The objectives of the module are to: raise the awareness of industrial design students to the demographic shift towards older consumers and the needs of disabled people; introduce them to more rigorous methods of user assessment; gain an empathy with users outside their personal experience; and provide students with an opportunity to apply their skills and knowledge in the field of user assessment...

14 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore how Nokia, the world's leading producer of mobile phones, channels new technologies into the everyday lives of consumers by mixing and matching diverse new technologies with consumer groups according to each group's capacity to comprehend and experience these new technologies.
Abstract: Traditionally, producers faced a binary choice when channelling new technologies into consumers' everyday lives. They pushed new science-based technology or adapted to often unimaginative market pull. The former isolated design from consumers, the latter from technology. The emerging information society aggravates the traditional trade-off into a dilemma. Many consumers fail to sufficiently comprehend new information technologies to meaningfully experience them, or to demand anything else from them. This article explores how Nokia, the world's leading producer of mobile phones, channels new technologies into the everyday lives of consumers. Interaction with consumers is a driver of design at Nokia. Nokia mixes and matches diverse new technologies with consumer groups according to each group's capacity to comprehend and experience these new technologies. We propose that Nokia's heuristic rules about organization of interaction with consumers may generalize beyond Nokia.

13 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The process of designing through making as mentioned in this paper is distinguished by a particular creative approach in which both designing and making activities are fully integrated and intrinsic to each other, and the qualities of an object made through this process are directly related to the intention of the maker and the materials and processes they use to explore that intention.
Abstract: For this issue of The Design Journal we have particularly encouraged submissions on designing through making. The European Academy of Design conference, Design Cultures, Sheffield, 1999, and recent Crafts Council seminars addressing the role of craft practices in creative enterprise have brought to light a discussion on the validity of designing through making as a design methodology useful beyond the traditional boundaries of craft-based practice. This evolving area of investigation within design discourse, which includes a developing body of practice-centred work, is creating links between crafts-based practice and other research fields such as marketing, product innovation in manufacturing, rural and urban regeneration, ComputerAided Design/Computer-Aided Manufacture (CAD/CAM), virtual reality and the sustainable development agenda. Most of these themes are represented in this issue, The process of designing through making is distinguished by a particular creative approach in which both designing and making activities are fully integrated and intrinsic to each other. The qualities of an object made through this process are directly related to the intention of the maker and the materials and processes they use to explore that intention. The process is open and evolving: results can only be achieved through ongoing dialogue between the maker, materials and process, The individual experience and knowledge of the maker with the chosen variables of the process are a key factor in the production of the design. Designer-makers often work with a chosen medium for a considerable length of time, building a personal visual vocabulary and body of knowledge through adopting and adapting processes, This adaptation and inventive use of processes results in a diverse range of individual products with unique characteristics. Craft skill is an integral element of this practice. The definition of craft is much debated and wide ranging, conjuring up images in popular culture of the conservation of skills that perhaps otherwise would have been lost through industrialization. Within the cultures of art and design practices, craft is often viewed as a poor relation of both fields, pejoratively associated with happy hands, and the mindless making of 'dust collectors', Polanyi (1969) provides a more dignified and worthy description: a personal and subconscious intelligence, linking hand and brain. More recently, Crafts Council research by Cusworth and Press has presented a definition created through debate and a review of contemporary opinion and literature: 'A notion of intelligent making ...that is a mix of formal knowledge, tacit knowledge, physical and mental skill, contextual awareness, innovation and personal creative autonomy. These are applied to a practice that involves a skilful achievement of relevance in identifying an objectified focus for the craft process, invention of concepts, forms and techniques, an appropriate expression, the exercise of judgement, skills in construction and presentation',

11 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The potential for ecodesign innovation is not fully exploited at present as mentioned in this paper, and though the theoretical framework and literature on the subject suggest a significant role for design for sustainability, current design practice lags a little behind.
Abstract: Environmental limits and the need for a more sustainable future require dramatic technological and societal innovation This has led to the concept and practice of ecodesign, and though the theoretical framework and literature on the subject suggest a significant role for design for sustainability, current ecodesign practice lags someway behind This paper begins by reviewing current practice and concludes that the potential for ecodesign innovation is not fully exploited at present The paper then describes a research project that aimed to explore and describe such innovative approaches and the ways in which design might more significantly contribute to sustainability Comparative design workshops were conducted with designers from differing contexts tackling the same design task Results are presented along with early conclusions and some discussion

10 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examined the role of designing through making in the fashion design process and found that the designer's role in fashion design decision-making and garment-styling can be divided into five generic phases.
Abstract: This paper examines the role of designing through making in the fashion design process. It draws upon empirical data collected through a series of case studies conducted with womenswear design and manufacturing companies targeting differing segments of the UK clothing and fashion market (Sinha, 2000). An examination was made of the areas of the design process that the designer was immediately involved with, and, therefore, an examination of the designer's role in the fashion design process. Models of fashion design processes were constructed to compare how activities and design decisions differed. Five generic phases were elucidated, differences in activities, decision-making and garment-styling were noted to arise from how information was taken on about the market, analysed and used, size of companies, types of consumers targeted, number of retail distribution outlets (potential market size) and finance available to the company. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the role of designing through making is...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, Bill and Gillian Hollins' new book is a hands-on practical guide to successful product and service development and it serves a warning to UK management within the manufacturing and service industries to look toward long-term product planning strategies for companies to survive in the global economy.
Abstract: Bill and Gillian Hollins' new book is a hands-on practical guide to successful product and service development. Littered with anecdotes drawn from the authors' consultancy experience it serves a warning to UK management within the manufacturing and service industries to look toward long-term product planning strategies for companies to survive in the global economy.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the rapid expansion of doctoral education in design is largely a result of the changing institutional context of design education, and suggest a more fundamental transformation is underway.
Abstract: There are few more active areas of debate in design education currently than the value and status, and perhaps even the very possibility, of doctoral education in design. Recent years have seen the emergence of many new doctoral programmes and the consolidation of other more established centres in this new context (Walker, 2000). Although some might argue that the rapid expansion of doctoral education in design is largely a result of the changing institutional context of design education, one might also suggest a more fundamental transformation is underway. Arguably, such developments are part of broader social, cultural and technological trends, that are changing not just what is researched, but who does research, and how and where it is done. New objects of study demand new approaches. It is in this context that I want to place the design research conference that took place in France this summer.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For the past 3 years, Graham Whiteley has been using making in a project to develop a mechanical analogy for the human skeletal arm to inform the future development of prostheses and other artefacts as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: For the past 3 years, Graham Whiteley has been using making in a project to develop a mechanical analogy for the human skeletal arm to inform the future development of prostheses and other artefacts. Other aspects of the work such as use of drawings and the use of a principled approach in the absence of concrete design goals have been documented elsewhere, this paper concentrates on the central role of making in the process. The paper will discuss the role of making in multi-disciplinary research; craft skills and resources appropriate to each stage of a practice centred research project in this area; the use of models in an iterative experimental investigation and the value of models in eliciting knowledge from a broad community of interested parties and experts.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The main purpose of this paper is to introduce the latest research on managing innovation - this is the term given by British Standards Institution to design management (of products and services that cannot exist now) for three product generations ahead as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The main purpose of this paper is to introduce the latest research on managing innovation - this is the term given by British Standards Institution to design management (of products and services that cannot exist now) for three product generations ahead. It was found that it does appear to be possible to set up procedures to plan long-term products and services for more than ten years ahead but only the very best organizations are doing it. The new British Standard (BS 7000 Part 1, 1999) that emanates from this research is also discussed.Initially, this paper looks at the growth over the past 20 years of what is covered by design and its management, and the links between design management and strategic management. The natural extension of this is Innovation Management.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A summary of the results from the initial research and development work carried out in the field of mechanical device design is provided and the application of this technique to a complex design problem, that of prosthetic socket design is considered.
Abstract: A number of design methodologists have developed potentially useful models of design, but few of these models have addressed the full complexity of the design of a real engineering artefact. A joint research programme undertaken at Coventry University and the University of the West of England, Bristol, has identified case-based reasoning as a useful technique for representing engineering design information. A prototype design system has been developed (Vinney et al, 1999a; Vinney et al, 1999b) which operates in the domain of simple mechanical devices. The COnceptual Design ASsistant (CODAS) is capable of generating new design solutions with a controlled degree of novelty. Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) technology was used to store and retrieve past design solutions which were defined in terms of a symbolic representation language.This paper provides a summary of the results from the initial research and development work carried out in the field of mechanical device design and then considers the application of...


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Sustainability remains an elusive and as yet ill-defined, "wicked" problem as mentioned in this paper, and it remains an important issue for design, however, sustainability will and should be diverse, represented by a variety of design philosophies and approaches.
Abstract: At present, there are few more widely used but poorly interpreted terms than sustainability. For design, it remains an elusive and as yet ill-defined, ‘wicked’ problem. Our most successful and visible manifestations of designed sustainability have perhaps been a generation of green {re-used, recycled, recyclable} products around ten years ago and more recently the development of the ‘lifecycle’ approach, in which all a product's impacts are considered throughout its complete life. However, sustainability will and should be diverse, represented by a variety of design philosophies and approaches. Those stretching the boundaries in the theory and practice of sustainable design deserve acknowledgement and attention.