I found the full audio and slide presentation of Peter Merholz from Adaptative Path. I think he describes in a clear way the shift Industrial Design is going trough; taking the focus out of the product and concentrating on the user experience first.

This poses somehow an opposite approach compared to the past of Industrial Design. Let’s make a really really short review:

During the 50’s production was mainly focused on productivity. The best example of rationalization and standardization was Ford.

After WWII, with the economies in expansion, there was a high demand of products that could only be fulfilled at a reasonable price trough high volume productions. Industrial Design didn’t exist yet in the business world, but was always a cosmetic job after the engineering of the product. This type of design intervention was to become a milestone. The general misconception about the designer as a stylist doing a superfluous decoration comes from those days.

All the resulting products ended up being very similar, since they were focused on technical issues rather than on the user. Products used to compete (and we can still see this today) on technical features and companies started feeling a further need for differentiation. The path was long before design started playing a role in the business world. Companies centered on quality management, value chain management, and all sort of marketing strategies to create more value for the customer. They didn’t find any better way to differentiate the product by itself so they centered on the service.

Technology evolved, production cycles became shorter and prices dropped. Technology innovation became a standard for survival. Companies felt more and more the need to decompress the economic pressure when design started having a true impact and it became the new differentiation factor.

Industrial Design doesn’t really focus on the product nor on the user. ID focuses on the interface, this means the interaction between the user and the product. So, if we get this right, we will be able to understand the role ID is playing today. The introduction of design in the business environment has also been possible because these two are finding a common language. More and more designers are getting business and marketing skills. On the other hand, business managers are getting training on design thinking, mainly because they need to acquire the skill to think in a creative way and learn how to handle uncertainty in a fast paced always changing environment.

So, it seems very natural now to understand why designers are thinking today beyond the product. User experience is the new differentiation driver, it requires a more holistic and strategic approach to achieve the goal. The limits between the product and service are now fuzzy, since they are part of the same and seamless user experience.

As we can see, this evolution has taken Industrial Design to a whole new level, becoming a very powerful business tool.

To finish, I would like to point out that further changes are needed to consolidate this relation. On one hand, designers will have to deal with more responsibilities and extend their typical knowledge field (i.e.creating new research tools, Return Over Design Investment (RODI) measurement techniques, etc). On the other hand, organizations will have overcome a cultural change to place design in its new role and take the most out of it.

I suggest you take a time to watch and enjoy Peter’s presentation after the jump.

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It is possible to apply Deming’s 14 points to Industrial Design?

First a really quick introduction for those that are not familiar with Deming’s work. Dr. Willam Edward Deming was a North American satistician, college professor, author and consultant who was a great contributor to improve industrial production during WWII. But Deming is best known as the father as Japan’s post war industry revival. Deming’s philosophy was summarized in 14 points that have been an inspiration for important changes in many organizations throughout the world. He is also called the father of TQM (Total Quality Management), since most of the TQM theory came from his book “Out of the crisis” published in 1982.

Lets review the 14 points from a design perspective…

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Dr. Ashok Ganguly and Microsoft’s Will Poole discuss innovative ways of creating and delivering products that are relevant, accessible, and affordable for everyone.

Watch OWWA Administrator Marianito Roque and Microsoft’s Will Poole talk about how technology can help keep overseas Filipino workers connected to their families.

As Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Craig Mundie is charged with exploring how technology and long-term innovation can enable new opportunities for people worldwide. Through his work, Mr. Mundie has been addressing fundamental questions of how the power of technology can transform education, helping to reach more people and to educate them more effectively. Watch as Mr. Mundie and Microsoft’s Will Poole discuss the role and possibilities of information and communications technology (ICT) in transforming education, the importance of strengthening the impact of great teachers and developing locally focused curriculums, and how Microsoft can deliver affordable and scalable solutions that will increase access to and the quality of education worldwide.

The Innovation Backlash By Reena Jana. Via Businessweek

In one 30-second TV spot, former Ford Motor Chairman and Chief Executive Bill Ford used the word “innovation” almost once every eight seconds. “If you look at the Ford Motor Company, innovation has driven everything we’ve done,” Ford said in the opening of the ad, which ran from late 2005 into 2006. The repetitions came to feel like a mantra as he concluded, “Innovation will be the compass that guides this company going forward.” That campaign has by now been abandoned.

Perhaps because in 2006, the year that followed the launch of these spots declaring innovation to be a core brand value, Ford (F) saw an unprecedented loss of $12.7 billion—surpassing its previous record of $7.39 billion set in 1992. The unfortunate timing of the TV spot before Ford’s worst year ever illustrates how companies are increasingly flying the innovation banner, hoping if they say the magic word loud enough, the public will see their brand as inventive and forward-thinking.

But the overuse of the term is now leading to an innovation backlash, or at least to an attempt to define and measure what “innovation” really means and how it can be measured. (more…)

There’s a storm brewing in designland. A backlash is gathering momentum, and what’s more, some of its chief dissidents are design’s leading lights.

Philippe Starck sheepishly peered out of the cover of December’s Icon magazine, under the ‘I killed design’ banner. In an Observer article a few months earlier Stephen Bailey, the fiery British design critic, exclaimed “When I hear the word ‘designer’, I reach for my chainsaw.”

Just as critics from outside design are sharpening their knives, designers are becoming racked with self-doubt and -loathing. We have surfed the wave of adoring interest, but the shifts that have taken place have left designland in intellectual disarray and in bad shape to defend itself.

This rising tide of disaffection tends to share two themes: a distaste for the superficiality of design’s media-celebrity nexus; and a growing discomfort with design’s role in generating ‘useless stuff’. These two complementary critiques could be abbreviated as Anti-fluff and Anti-stuff. (more…)

I think that as a designer one of the most rewarding experiences is to try to improve peoples life in a meaningful way.

I’ll soon start working in my Marketing Thesis, focusing on the creation of a new product and service to bring email and rich multimedia contents to the base of the pyramid. The goal will be to implement a new business model for third world countries (and other zones that don’t have access to the internet), giving people a convenient way to access the new communication technologies that will improve their lifestyle and opportunities.

This new system will not compete either with new proposals like the OLPC or the Classmate PC, since it will have less functionality and will also be cheaper. The intended use and the business model I have in mind is also very different (being in this case more similar the mobile phone market), since the service will subsidize the product with a pay per use model. I guess the best OS option will be Lynux based (to reduce costs and have an open platform for developers)so I don’t discard some kind of interactions with OLPCs and Classmate PCs.

This product/service will not compete with mobile phones or traditional mail, since it will be able to carry rich multimedia content faster than “snail” mail and cheaper than mobile wireless broadband. More info coming soon.

The following is a very interesting case from Uganda, where they created new telecenters, generating new business oportunities and giving people access to new technologies and information.

Enjoy!