Product design
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It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Industrial Design. (Discuss) Proposed since February 2011. |
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[edit] Introduction
Product design is the process of creating a new product to be sold by a business or enterprise to its customers.[1] It is concerned with the efficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products.[2]
Product designers conceptualize and evaluate ideas, making them tangible through products in a more systematic approach. Their role is to combine art, science and technology to create tangible three-dimensional goods. This evolving role has been facilitated by digital tools that allow designers to communicate, visualize and analyze ideas in a way that would have taken greater manpower in the past.
Product design is sometimes confused with industrial design, industrial design is concerned with the aspect of that process that brings that sort of artistic form and usability usually associated with craft design to that of mass produced goods.[3]
[edit] Design Process
The design process is the transformation of an idea, needs, or wants by consumers or the marketplace at large, into a product that satisfies these needs. This is usually accomplished by adventurous people that are willing to take it on. Sometimes an engineer will be involved on some levels to provide technical assistance. Product designers follow various [methodology] that requires a specific skill set (usually in engineering) to complete.
Design is essentially a problem solving exercise. The design of a product is non-linear process, its stages are inter-woven amongst one another:
- Design Brief
- Research *
- Concept Generation *
- Concept Development *
- Prototyping and Testing *
- Concept Refinement *
- Final Outcome
- Manufacturing and Further Testing
- Refinement and Sales
These stages (identified using asterisks) are loosely in order and should not be religiously adhered to. The design process does begin with Research, however, there is also On-going Research throughout the entirety of the process. The Research stage should validate the concept, i.e. who is it for, why is it needed etc. Like Research, the Prototyping and Testing stage is interwoven from the Concept Generation to the Final Outcome. The Final Outcome being what you would present on a large (usually A3 or A2) board or poster, this includes photographs of a (working) model or Computer Aided Design (CAD) Renderings, showing context.
[edit] Initial stage
- Idea Generation can be from imagination, observation, or research.
- Need Based Generation can be from the need to solve a problem, the need to follow the popular trends, or the need for a product to do a specific task, TRIZ can be used to solve contradictions.
[edit] Mid stage
- Design Solutions arise from meeting user needs, concept development, form exploration, ergonomics, prototyping, materials, and technology.
- Production involves fabrication and manufacturing the design. Products need to be checked against national safety standards before launching, to ensure compliance to required safety Directives,before applying a CE mark
[edit] Final stage
- Marketing involves selling the product. It can either be client based which means that a client buys the design and manufactures it and then, sells it to customers. Or it can be user based where the product is sold directly to the user by the designer.[4]
[edit] Application
Product design ranges from furniture, electronics, lighting, tools, toys, and general everyday objects.
For new products product design is of six important steps: 1. customer needs identification 2. conceptualization 3. system level design 4. Detailed design 5. Testing and refinement 6. Production ramp up
[edit] Future trends
The design of products of every type is clearly linked to the economic health of manufacturing sectors...Innovation provides much of the competitive impetus for the development of new products, with new technology often requiring a new design interpretation. It only takes one manufacturer to create a new product paradigm to force the rest of the industry to catch up - fueling further innovation.[5]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] Sources
- Books
- Morris, R. (2009). The Fundamentals of Product Design. AVA Publishing. ISBN 2940373175.
[edit] External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Product design |
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