CHANGES IN PRODUCT DESIGN AND
DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES: DESIGN THINKING, SERVICE DESIGN AND USER EXPERIENCE
CAMBIOS EN
LOS PROCESOS DE DISEÑO Y DESARROLLO DE PRODUCTOS: DESIGN THINKING, DISEÑO DE
SERVICIOS Y EXPERIENCIA DEL USUARIO
Guido Amendolaggine
II https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6572-8081
I National University of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
II Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
*Corresponding author: delgiorgio@fba.unlp.edu.ar
JEL Classification: O31, O32, O35
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5643064
Received: 27/09/2021
Accepted: 1/11/2021
Abstract
This article addresses the new
theories and concepts of design management: design thinking, user experience (UX)
and service design. They consider people's experiences and focus on the
characteristics of each one of them. From industrial design, the scope and
relationships between these definitions - now better visible - were analyzed, which always belonged to the design field of the
discipline, from which an attempt was made to identify how they influence
innovation, design and development of new products. To account for the
evolution that the design field has had, the most significant processes are
contrasted to visualize the differences that make this change fundamental.
Finally, it is concluded on its strategic relevance for the application in
public and private organizations. Also taking into account how these theories
are methodologically incorporated into the set of activities inherent to
industrial design.
Keywords: industrial design, design process,
user experience, design thinking, service design, human-centered design
Resumen
Este artículo aborda las nuevas teorías y conceptos de la gestión del diseño:
pensamiento de diseño, experiencia de usuario (UX) y diseño de servicios.
Consideran las experiencias de las personas y se centran en las características
de cada una de ellas. Desde el diseño industrial, se analizaron los alcances y
relaciones entre estas definiciones -ahora más visibles-, que siempre
pertenecieron al campo del diseño de la disciplina, desde el cual se intentó
identificar cómo influyen en la innovación, diseño y desarrollo de nuevos
productos. Para dar cuenta de la evolución que ha tenido el campo del diseño,
se contrastan los procesos más significativos para visualizar las diferencias
que hacen fundamental este cambio. Finalmente, se concluye sobre su relevancia
estratégica para la aplicación en organismos públicos y privados. También
teniendo en cuenta cómo estas teorías se incorporan metodológicamente al
conjunto de actividades inherentes al diseño industrial.
Palabras clave: diseño
industrial, proceso de diseño, experiencia de usuario, pensamiento
de diseño, diseño de
servicio, diseño centrado en las personas
Introduction
What we call Design Thinking is
practiced in one way or another by all great thinkers, whether in literature or
art, music or science, engineering or business. But the difference is that, in
design, there is an attempt to teach it as a systematic method of creative
innovation that defines practice. It is intended to be the normal way to
proceed, not the exception.1
The new definitions that complement
the activity of industrial design, at first can be overwhelming and later
become confusing, if not deepened. The professional profile of the industrial
designer is continually evolving and resignifying
itself. Therein lies the importance of reflecting and being able to define
these new functions that push the boundaries forward - now blurred - that
professional reality imposes on it.
This new context requires a type of
product design focused on people (Human Centered
Design), which are no longer seen as mere consumers. It must act in favour of
the kindest, most human and emotional aspects of the individuals’ experience,
of what they may not know how to describe, but they feel inside. This results
in a deepening of the study of their experiences, lived or developed by users
when accessing and interacting with a product or service.
Likewise, work is done on the
experiences of the personnel that provide the product or service. Designers not
only have to understand the cultures of others, but also their own and assume
that their emotions, practices, and belief systems inform what, how, and why
they do what they do. Dialogue is encouraged between all those who
experience/live/compose the product or service ecosystem, consulting with the
members of the organizations, their partners, brand representatives and final
users.
From this perspective, the
implementation of Design Thinking allows, on the one hand, to deploy (unlock)
the potential of the different tools that industrial design has today seeking
to create new concepts of experiences that make it possible to satisfy everyone
the actors of the project, production and social complex of consumption.
On the other hand, Service Design is
in charge of organizing the processes and internal actors of companies, in
order to reach the end user with a product or service that satisfies their
needs efficiently, considering the particularities of their consumption
experience. The user experience comprises the last stage, the moment in which
the user comes into direct contact with the product or service to satisfy their
particular and specific needs, seeking to ensure the best possible experience
with the least effort.
The article is structured in three
parts, theoretical background, focus analysis and the changes in the
traditional design process.
Theoretical
background
Design Thinking
Since Rowe introduced the term
design thinking in 1987, a set of ideas have been discussed over the years.2,3,4
Even Brown consolidated and extended its application in the academic field. In
his article, Brown,5 explains the importance of design from an
anthropocentric and collaborative perspective, through which the resolution of
design problems reaches new frontiers.
The impact of these articles on
design thinking is reflected in a dissemination and popularization of the
design profession, since this practice can become a strategic tool to reach
innovative solutions to problems and, in this way, obtain differentiating
results. It is proposed to understand the discipline as a complex design system
and not as a tool limited to the aesthetics and functionality of products, and
to use the design process as a holistic approach to problem solving.6
According to Gasca
& Zaragozá,7 the main reason for the existence of Design
Thinking is to emerge as a novel tool that combines rational, logical and
intuitive thinking due to optimize the decision-making process. To specifically
explain Design Thinking, Brown5 clearly states that this methodology
seeks to think about the problem from the broadest perspective, not focusing on
a product, but looking at the entire context. That is why in his article he
states that the practice of design thinking as such exists before the
designer's profession.
Many of the innovations that man has
made throughout human history, such as the railroad, the steam engine,
electricity, to name just a few, would not have been possible if at that time
the inventors had not thought about the problem comprehensively. In these
cases, they not only created a specific product, but developed the entire
system. Of course, at that time they did not call themselves design thinkers,
nor did they explain that they worked under this methodology. The terminology
of design thinking appears much later and is a term that seeks to explain this
perspective in order to systematically confront problems and find effective and
concrete solutions.3
This, may explains why the role that
the industrial designer has taken in recent years has gone from being tactical,
that is, as a late complement in the value chain, to being strategic. It has
placed organizations in a position to create the idea that best meets the
desires and expectations of consumers.4 The decision to position
design in a strategic place is a mainly business measure. The organizations’ strategy
and management system has been experiencing a process of crisis due to the lack
of innovation and differentiation from competitors, is now seeking novel ways
of organizing and producing better effects. Design (and, with it, designers)
now appears as a differential innovation factor that can change paradigms, not
only in terms of business, but, and above all, in the collaborative and
interdisciplinary way of working it proposes for achieve new results.
The design process proposed by
design thinking seeks constant feedback at each stage to obtain the best
solutions. The role of the designer in each step of the project serves to
coordinate the participating actors with an empathetic and intuitive profile,
who can guide the participatory process and obtain the most significant
contributions from each one. The main authors divide this process into five
stages: 1) empathize (learn from the user for whom it is to be designed); 2)
define (a starting point according to user needs); 3) devise (generate creative
solutions for the defined need); 4) prototyping (making the idea tangible); and
5) testing (the prototype with the user and learning from their feedback).2,3,5,4,8
Service Design
As we saw earlier, these trends have
an anthropocentric vision, which includes a series of practices around the
understanding of the needs, wants and constrains of users. All of them seek to
enhance strategic decision-making and increase the effectiveness of individual
programs and services. But, for the product or service to arrive effectively,
it can satisfy their needs and, above all, provide a good user experience the
internal elements of organizations must be organized and properly operated.
Here is where the concept of SerDes appears, a design methodology based on organizing
the interactions between people, infrastructure, communication and material
components to improve the quality of the provision of products and services.
According to Mager: “Service Design aims to ensure
service interfaces are useful, usable and desirable from the client’s point of
view and effective, efficient and distinctive from the supplier’s point of
view” (p. 355).9
We can say that it transforms
something intangible and abstract —as a service is— into something visible and
understandable. It helps people to experience goods and services, offering them
something extra to improve everyday life. In other words, the activity of an
organization is approached from within, reviewing its work dynamics, thinking
about the experience of each of its sectors. These processes are invisible
doors outside organizations, but for the most part they have a direct impact on
the overall user experience. According to Fritsche:
“Service Design is a holistic segment of the business, which consists of
rethinking how a company works, through the planning and organization of
people, infrastructure, communication and material components of a service, but
also through the use of the human factor of emotion.” (p. 9).10
The incorporation of service design
generates a series of benefits in the operation of an organization; it provides
a context for reflection and discussion around the systems that must be
implemented to provide a service in an adequate way; fosters discussion of
procedures or policies, exposes weaknesses or deviations, and thus designs
appropriate solutions; and it helps order and align certain aspects of internal
functioning such as functions, processes, and workflows.11
User Experience
User Experience is a definition
introduced by Donald Norman in the mid-nineties to describe a type of design
focused on comprehensively solving the particular and specific needs of users,
allowing them to achieve the best experience and satisfaction of use with the
least effort, from a multidisciplinary work and taking into account the
subjectivity of the different users.12
These models came up from a variety
of disciplines: sociology, psychology, marketing, and of course Design.
Consequently, the models vary in their terminologies and analytical
commitments. However, on closer inspection, some common threads emerge from
this analyses.13
User Experience differs from the
concept of usability, which is not limited only to improving performance in the
product-user interaction, but seeks to a systemic solution for strategic
problems of product utility, psychology of pleasure and satisfaction of use.14,15,16,17
To enable user experience actions, professionals study every aspect about
users, their behaviours, their actions and reactions, observe and measure the
degree of ease with which they interpret and use the interface of a product.
What has happened over time with the
concept of user experience is that it has been relegated almost exclusively to
the development of digital interfaces, such as websites or applications for
mobile devices, through which it seeks to improve the customer relationship or
of the user with the organization that provides the service. However, Norman
makes an appreciation of this problem and proposes to understand the life of a
person as a set of experiences that must be designed and rethought and not just
focus or stay tied to the design of the digital experience.1
Focus
analysis
The contact points
By integrating the concepts
developed so far, we came out with an end-to-end experience approach, at the
initial end of which we have service design, which organizes the internal
elements and processes of the organization to ensure a product or service, and
at the end of which we have the user experience, which examines the particular
and specific needs of users when acquiring each value (product or service) [Figure 1]. This communication between both
extremes can be defined as touch points, which take place in a given instance
of time, in a certain place and through a specific delivery channel. Generally,
we will find multiple points of contact, such as material artifacts, environments, interpersonal encounters, and others.18,19,20
In accordance with Clatworthy: “Every time a person interacts or relates to
the product or service, a point of contact is given, they have a service
meeting. This provides an experience and adds something to the person's
relationship with the service and its provider. The sum of all interactions and
experiences forms the opinion that the user has about the product or service and
its supplier.” (p. 25).20
Figure 1. Main concepts related to design thinking
Source: Own elaboration based on Martenson
(2009) and Lemon & Verhoef (2016)
Martenson18 provides a
categorization to understand contact points depending on where they are
originated, either internal or external to the organization that we consider
valid for product design.13
The internal or inside-out are those
generated within the organization, while the external or outside-in are those
initiated by customers. Both types are necessary for the proper functioning of
an organization and for the product or service to satisfactorily reach the
user.
The Internet and advances in
computer technology offer new ways to connect with organizations and allow
users to actively participate and thereby shape their own experiences.
Depending on the degree of intervention that organizations can have on them,
the contact points can be controllable, influenceable
or uncontrollable.21
Dunn and Davis,22 they
add another useful point of view for the classification of contact points based
on the process of purchasing a product or service. Depending on the time of the
User Experience, the contact points may be prior to the purchase, during the
purchase or after it.
Contact points of pre-purchase
experience are very important, since they represent the first encounter of the
user with the brand. They involve communication between users through
advertising and the internet, but also through word of mouth. Those that happen
during the purchase are those that determine the acquisition of a product or
service, and have to do with the points of sale and the quality of the sale
service, as well as with the customer service centers.
And the post-purchase experience
contact points are those that are given once the user acquires the product or
service and are related to guarantees, after-sales services and satisfaction
surveys.15,16,17
Iteration
Another important factor is adopting
an iterative mindset throughout all the development
process. Iterating means making constant prototyping and testing to receive
feedback about our solution, and reframe it from the feedback received,
learning from our previous “mistakes”. Many authors, not only designers, agree
in the importance of failing and learning from this process of trial and error.
“In fact, early failure can be crucial to success in innovation. Because the
faster you find weaknesses during an innovation cycle, the faster you can
improve what needs fixing.” (p. 41).23
Iteration brings some benefits to
the design process; you can get feedback early in the development lifecycle, it
is a regular testing in which you learn something new from each iteration, you
can measure in real times if you meet user needs, and last but not least it
gives stakeholders a clear visibility of the progress and evolution of your
process.
To sum up, this is not just a step
in the design process, but it represents a continuous process of testing and
integrating feedback throughout all the development, it will take few rounds of
iterations before reaching the final solution that best address users’ needs.
Discussion:
changes in the traditional design process
From the study of the design
currents that have become protagonist in recent times, we can make an analysis
of the evolution that the traditional design process has had, arising from
materials on industrial design by Löbach24 and Quarante25.
Its theoretical and methodological bases allowed the profession to be conceived
as a project activity, perfectly inserted in the complex productive world.
However, this new millennium
presents multiple and unexpected events, which cause new uncertainties.
Industrial design, not oblivious to these changes, was evolving and
repositioning itself and reached new stages of leadership in industrial
projects and developments based on design management.
The new currents described
throughout this work are based on classical design theories and take part in
their processes and methodologies, but they propose new points of view for
approaching and solving problems that are better adapted to current reality. It
is a comprehensive methodology based more on different complementary approaches
than on participatory construction, which evaluates and proposes solutions
throughout the entire cycle and where the productive, commercial and consumer
spheres interact. In this sense, it is characterized by having a comprehensive
approach that contemplates the entire production and consumption sequence and
which, being a two-way process, allows communication and feedback between the
different stages and going back to make better decisions or solutions
previously raised [Figure 2].
Figure
2. Comparison between industrial design processes
Source: Own elaboration from Quarante
(1994) and Brown (2008)
Conclusions
At this point, we have reflected
about some of the current concepts that redefine design in general and
industrial design in particular, and shape new paradigms or models to act on
product and service innovation. In the framework of design thinking, by
studying the concepts of service design and user experience as complementary,
we discover the importance that touch points acquire to reach systemic,
comprehensive and more precise design solutions.
In particular, design thinking
allows the participatory development of technological innovations reorganizes
all the productive resources available and includes the user in decisions
throughout the process. Service design obliges professionals and productive decision-makers
not to ignore or disregard the multiple services that derive from the design
and development of products. The user experience —which by its focus on the
human-machine system relationship— appears as an evolution of ergonomics
(physical and psychological) and keeps design in the leading role of the
tireless search for satisfaction of experiences.
As a corollary, we understand that
many times it is not sympathetic (or politically correct) to use concepts in
English in the Latin American context, but, at the same time, we maintain that
these should not be ignored, especially when they are internationally
recognized and, furthermore, they rank the design against other current
approaches to administrative science.26
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Conflict of interests
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of
interest.
Authors' contribution
·
Federico Del
Giorgio Solfa: Conceptualization, Investigation,
Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft,
Writing – review & editing.
·
Ticiana Agustina Alvarado Wall:
Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing –
original draft, Writing – review & editing.
·
Guido Amendolaggine: Conceptualization, Investigation,
Methodology, Writing – original draft.