Design Education: Empirical Investigations of Design Theory in Practice in Specific Context
Year: 2012
Editor: Lyndon Buck, Geert Frateur, William Ion, Chris McMahon, Chris Baelus, Guido De Grande, Stijn Verwulgen
Author: Boruah, Dipanka; Das, Dr. Amarendra Kumar
Series: E&PDE
Institution: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India
Section: Ideas to Market in Design Education
Page(s): 781-786
ISBN: 978-1-904670-36-0
Abstract
The present extent and content of designers’ work has changed from those in the past. Green and Bonollo mention seven phases in the product development process. The global market becoming increasingly competitive; it has become necessary to integrate design into the concept-to-market process and encouraged designers to participate in decision-making for product planning and positioning. While one considers the underdeveloped or developing countries, above considerations need to be modified in the local context and cultural perspective. A new product begins as an idea or a concept and product developers are interested in lean product development to get products faster and at a lower cost to market. The constant change in markets and technology require companies to meet new challenges. Developing new products and improving existing products forms an important step in meeting this challenge. However, this set of knowledge base may not be able to satisfy contextual situation and design students from underdeveloped and developing countries have to understand the stark context of the use of their product. In these places, even people without formal education solve variety of problems through innovation. A designer can learn a lot from this and needs to contribute by integrating design to make these innovations a marketable product. Understanding of various needs of the user and market forces constitute integral knowledge for the design students for initiating new product development based on innovation. The paper discusses research work to evolve a method to assist in bringing these innovations to global customers through design.
Keywords: Design education, design practice, grass root innovation