Designing in the face of change: the elusive push toward emotionally resonate experiences

Abstract

Designers are facing simultaneous and extremely meaningful shifts from artifact to experience, from styling to emotional resonance, and from the massive and faceless to the local and personal. These changes are not immediate, and are not complete; just as they didn't begin overnight, they will continue to evolve as culture continues to morph. These shifts, however, have already had—and will continue to have—unprecedented effects on the essence of business, commerce, and trade. Each of the shifts, taken individually, tells a compelling tale of opportunity and cultural change; when considered together, the three shifts paint a picture of a world where the human condition is empowered by the connections of design and business, and where the products, systems, and services that are bought and sold have a positive impact on society and culture. While these dramatic shifts are changing the very essence of industrialized business and culture, the industrial design process that is commonly taught and practiced hasn't similarly evolved. Thus, as the Fortune 500 and Global 2000 realize the need for cohesive ecosystem design and search for the “end-to-end product experience,” design consultancies are struggling to deliver more complicated offerings in shorter timeframes. A new process—a more fluid, responsible, and integrated design process—is necessary to solve the business and cultural problems facing by today's designers. This new process implies a push away from artifact and toward insight, with great repercussions for the traditionally “physical” field of product design. This paper summarizes trends the authors have seen while working at a strategic level with major stakeholders of very large corporations. While the particular clients change and the nuances of the design problems are always different, we've seen these three shifts while dealing with clients in consumer electronics, enterprise hardware, telecommunications, and other assorted corporate disciplines. It is, therefore, helpful to understand our respective backgrounds in order to realize the point of view from which we write.