Design Management Group

Changing role of industrial design

Over the last 30 years, the role of design in the business and the provision of design services has evolved from superficial-styling to the provision of comprehensive innovation and strategic services. However, expectations of design from industry do not always match the capabilities of designers.

Numbers in brackets [ ] refer to the references below

Silent design

In the post-war period, it was perhaps the norm for all aspects of the product to be designed in-house by the engineering team. The aesthetic and ergonomic aspects would be tackled by the most 'artistic' member of the team, and approved by the managing director [1]. Indeed, such tasks were viewed in many firms as 'tasks that can be done by anybody with a modicum of common sense' [2]. This marginalisation of professional design specialists was later labelled 'silent design' by Gorb & Dumas [3] and in 1988, Norman [4] noted that 'most design is not done by designers, it is done by engineers, programmers and managers'. Indeed, such silent design once pervaded British industry, to the detriment of quality, usability and desirability of products.

Superficial styling

Whilst many companies began to employ design specialists in the 1980s, it remained common for the industrial design consultant to focus solely on the user facing aspects of the product, addressing aesthetic and ergonomic considerations. To do this, they applied their skills in two and three-dimensional visualisation (sketches, renderings, visual models), coupled with a knowledge of production processes for cosmetic components [5, 6]. Consultancies with a wider range of skills could also address some of the more fundamental engineering aspects of product development. In order to achieve this, the design specialist needed to understand the wider business context, but this was often an indirect input to the design process.

Designer led innovation

Through the 1990s, design consultancies began to realise that they can provide other product-development related support. They were often more familiar with emerging production methods than many company-based engineers; who were experts on in-house manufacturing techniques. They also began to apply a range of new approaches for understanding the needs and wants of consumers, challenging traditional methods of market research [7]. This placed the designer firmly between the marketing and engineering functions, as the champion of the user or consumer. Furthermore, many design firms had developed an intimate knowledge of the processes of product development across a range of industries. Thus, the design consultant began to offer services aiming to improve the product development or innovation process, by placing attention upon the user / consumer.

Strategic design

This evolution has continued, with design specialists increasingly providing a wide range of strategic services building on their fundamental skills in user understanding, visualisation and their approach to problem solving. Indeed, as early as 1984, Kotler & Rath [8] noted that designers are most effective when employed strategically. Designers are exposed to a wide range of industries and have unique insight into the trends and developments in these industries. Designers are able to independently challenge the underlying assumptions and competitive position of proposed new products [9]. Designers are able to focus minds from across the business on the way in which a project might satisfy both the customer's needs and also the firm's strategic goals. Designers also often have strong contacts with suppliers and manufacturers in all areas of the globe. Thus, design service providers can increasingly offer expertise in all aspects of innovation.

Increasingly styling is again being viewed as a key element of competition, albeit clearly distinct from superficial styling. New-styling is strategically motivated, involving designers early and throughout the design process to create emotional engagements between products and consumers [10]. This relationship between users and objects is also being championed through new approaches to 'inclusive design', where the needs and capabilities of the whole population are considered to avoid inadvertent exclusion through poor design.

Firm design-maturity

The evolution of the design service provider has not necessarily been matched by an equivalent development in the skills of the typical design manager in industry. Consultancy IDEO for example comments on its website that they "bring unmatched experience in the process of strategic innovation from concept through to production". Thus, whilst presented here as a notional progression from the post-war period to today, in reality a firm may be at any stage described above in its use of professional design expertise. Indeed, it is still evident that many managers in UK companies have generally low awareness of what is possible through good design [11, 12]. The way in which a firm views design expertise and uses professional design skills can be viewed as its 'design maturity' (figure 1 below) [13].

The Danish Design Centre has proposed a similar 4 stage model of design maturity, called the 'design ladder', where companies pass through stages of 'non-design, 'design as styling', 'design as process' and 'design as innovation'. They use this model as a basis for challenging a firm's view of the perceived importance of design, for guiding change in behaviour and as a basis for targeting support initiatives [14].

Figure 1: Stages in a firm's 'maturity' in its use of professional design expertise [13]

References

• [1] Mercer F A, (1947), The industrial design consultant: who he is and what he does, A paper read before the Royal Society of Arts, The Banyard Press, London
• [2] Moody S, (1980), The role of industrial design in technological innovation, Design Studies, Vol. 1 no. 6, p329-339
• [3] Gorb P, Dumas A, (1987), Silent design, Design Studies, Vol. 8 No. 3, July, p150-156
• [4] Norman D A, (1998), The design of everyday things, MIT Press, USA
• [5] Alexander M, (1985), Creative marketing and innovative consumer product design - some case studies, Vol. 6 No. 1, p41
• [6] Herbst W, (1996), How industrial design fits into product development, The PDMA Handbook on new product development, ed. Rosenau M D, John Wiley & Sons, New York
• [7] Hargadon A, Sutton R I, (2000), Building an innovation factory, Harvard Business Review, May-June, p157-166
• [8] Kotler P, Rath A, (1984), Design: a powerful but neglected strategic tool, Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 5 No. 2, p16
• [9] Tarasewich P, (1996), Design for success, IM, March/April, p28-32
• [10] Lorenz C, (1994), Harnessing design as a strategic resource, Long Range Planning, Vol. 27 No. 5, p73-84
• [11] Moultrie J, Probert D, Clarkson P J, (2004), Development of a design audit to encourage the adoption of 'good design' practices in SMEs: a product and process perspective, EIASM 11th NPD Conference, Dublin
• [12] Desbarats G, (1994), Industrial Design - High time Cinderella went to the ball, World Class Design To Manufacture, Vol 1 issue 5, p14
• [13] Moultrie J, Fraser P, Clarkson P J, (2002), The innovation-styling spectrum: factors constraining the design ambition of UK SMEs, International Design Conference Design 2002, Dubrovnik, 14-17 May 2002
• [14] Danish Design Centre, (2003), Economic effects of Design, Report for National Agency for Enterprise and Housing, September 2003