BEYOND USER CENTERED DESIGN CO-CREATIVE EMERGENT APPROACHES IN THE INDUSTRIAL DESIGN DISCIPLINE Kevin Shankwiler, IDSA / Claudia B. Rebola Georgia Institute of Technology [email protected] / [email protected] 1. INTRODUCTION New understanding of people as users has forced the industrial design discipline to change. Since its origins, industrial design has traditionally attempted to design products for “most” - the target market where new opportunities are identified through market research. In this realm, the emphasis was on fabrication technologies that could produce products affordable for most users. More recently, however, there has been a shift in focus by applying universal design principles with the goal of creating products usable by more people. Universal design principles allowed designers to expand that focus and design for “more.” Currently, most industrial design institution curricula apply user-centered approaches, where universal design is the backbone. However, these methods are still not enough to allow designers to reach "all." In an attempt to accommodate demands of design for all, new methods have been injected into the design process. Linking the two aforementioned approaches advances a new business model in the design discipline. This paper discusses a co-creative emergent approach in the industrial design discipline that allow an understanding of users as individuals and therefore deliver more targeted design solutions for “all”. Novel design methods are discussed including participatory design and parametric modeling linked with digital fabrication. The authors discuss the links and relationships between the methods and how they complement each other throughout the course of the design process. The significance of this paper is to advance a new model of delivering better-suited products and services to the user needs within the discipline. The more the user is engaged in the process, the more attachment to the product they have resulting in increased perceived value of the design. Overall, the methods discussed have relevance to the evolving nature of business by designing more valuable products. 1.1. OVERVIEW ID TRADITIONAL PRACTICE The practice of “industrial design” emerged during the early part of the twentieth century, as mass produced machine goods became attainable and desirable by the masses. Advances in mass manufacturing efficiencies, distribution of electricity and expansion of transportation infrastructure lowered the cost of goods and brought technology and convenience within reach of the household. Early application of industrial design was driven by a desire to produce and sell goods with style – in part a reaction to an American economy based solely on standardized mass production (Meikle, 1979). Design was heavily influenced by the glamour of technology and the promise of a better future through designed products. Design teams at the time were suggested to be comprised of “a designer, an engineer, a technical expert, a manufacturer, a merchandiser, and others with a knowledge of production planning and channels of distribution” (Woodham, 1997). The emphasis was given to mass-produce products than can be marketable to the majority of people (Bürdek, 2005; Flores, 1999). Within this approach, designs were conceived by their creators and placed to the users hand. The relationship between designer-user was unidirectional, placing the user at the end of the spectrum in the receiving role. Much of the product concept generation was based on artistic views as well as experimentations with new material and processes. An example can includes a chair designed by Gerrit Rietveld (Conran & Bayley, 1985). The “Red and Blue” chair was designed in 1917 representing explorations guided by the De Stijl movement focused on building and strategically painting a chair to make it disappear or float in the environment. The chair is an outstanding piece of design yet it exemplifies the lack of end users playing a role in the design process. Figure 1. Designer-User relationship evolution The relationship between designer and the user is shown in fig. 1. In the first instance, as described above, the designer had little interaction with the user until the delivery phase when the product was purchased. 1.2. EVOLUTION OF USERS IN DESIGN Henry (Dreyfuss, 2003) was one of the first designers to start focusing on the user. The “Hoover” vacuum cleaner project showcases the designer’s interest in looking at needs from users’ perspectives. Such needs included understanding what housewives needed from the products (i.e. to be light to carry). Dreyfuss also expanded his work with the work on “Joe and Josephine”, positioning the designer as the founder of modern industrial design and of human factors (Tilley & Associates, 2002). Joe and Josephine helped designers understand fundamental differences between men and women users, and to design for their unique needs. The aforementioned project and the designer’s focus exemplify how the user started to shift its role towards being inspirational for product design. From this point, the user starts to have a more involved role in the design process. More of this approach can be seen on the work of (Papanek, 1985) focused on meeting the basic needs of struggling population by design. He states that the only important thing about design is how it relates to people. The more the user was incorporated in the design process, the more additional disciplines were integrated with industrial design. Disciplines from the cognitive sciences, psychology, physiology and even social sciences were instrumental in developing a new concept referred to as “user-centered design.” User-centered design formalized the role of the user in design, as designs were determined by the specific needs both physical and cognitive, as well as the wants and limitations of the user. From this standpoint, industrial design was populated with different research approaches to better involve the user and make informed decisions in product characteristics (Laurel, 2003; Martin & Hanington, 2012). Today’s designers are offered a myriad of methods such as context mapping, survey questionnaires, behavioral mapping and participatory design to mention a few. The second and last rows of fig. 1 further illustrate this evolution of users in the design process, showing the growing relationship between designer and user and exchange of information during the initial research, middle development and final delivery stages. 1.3. CO-CREATION Co-creation is a new term that has emerged in the design discipline describing the active role users plays in the design process. Frameworks have emerged to articulate the necessary approach to decide which design methods, tools and techniques to use in a specific project.(Elizabeth B. N. Sanders, Brandt, & Binder, 2010). Sanders et all proposes a framework describing methods for deciding how to probe, prime, understand and induce creativity from users though a variety of tools. The methods are also articulated for users to express their attitudes and opinions under three areas, ”what they say, what they do and what they make.” New generative tools have also emerged to harness creativity from the users (Martin & Hanington, 2012; E. B. N. Sanders & William, 2001). Users can be approached in terms of what they “say” by telling their thoughts about particular things through methods such as interviews. They can also “do” or express their opinions by acting, engaging and playing through observational or scenario based design techniques. Lastly, users can “make” tangible things through collages or “Velcro” toolkits. This last category differentiates from the others, as users become more active participants in the design process, co-designing products with professionals. The overall message from this new co-creative approach is that to drive truly human-centered product design, it requires harnessing creativity of ordinary users through the right variety and type of tools. Fig. 2 illustrates the increased integration of users in the first two phases of design due to co-creation practices (row four). Figure 2. User centered Designer-User relationship 1.4. UNIVERSAL DESIGN IMPLICATIONS One of the most significant advances in design related to understanding users has been documented within a universal design approach. Universal Design (UD) claims that design should not be accessible for just a few people. Neither should a product should be designed for groups sharing specific characteristics. Rather, products should be designed to satisfy the need of most people without stigmatizing users. Universal Design, as such, is defined as the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design (The Center for Universal Design, 1997). The authors, a working group of architects, product designers, engineers and environmental design researchers, collaborated to establish seven principles that may be used to evaluate existing designs, guide the design process and educate both designers and consumers about the characteristics of more usable products and environments. The principles have been influential for designing better products and widely adopted when designing accessible products. Numerous examples and guiding principles have been approached (Lidwell, Holden, & Butler, 2003). Lidwell et all presents a large number of principle examples around answering the question, “how can design be better perceived?”