Theory and Practice
The Relation between the Professional Culture of Industrial Designers and their Experiences in Professional Life View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dogan Can Hatunoglu, Pınar Kaygan
With the global developments in the fields of innovation and technology, the industrial design profession is continuously expanding its definition. By not only creating or enhancing products but also services, and systems; industrial design operates in mostly manufacturing related industries such as; furniture, white goods, and electronic appliances. Today, the profession’s continuously increasing importance and place in the market attract the attention of these companies. Because manufacturing companies are mainly engineer-oriented, various variables emerge in the adaptation of industrial designers to the professional environment. Thus, differences appear in the professional culture of industrial designers which acquired in the undergraduate education. This situation shapes the definition and culture of the profession. In the literature, there are many sources on the descriptions and the cultures of many professions. However, there is a gap in the literature about the professional culture of the industrial design profession. This paper explores the relation between the professional culture of industrial designers and their experiences in professional life. It reveals industrial designers’ adaptation to professional life, their interactions with other professions, and organizational cultures of manufacturing companies that industrial designers work in. In the field study, data were collected through 15 semi-structured interviews with industrial designers who were working in large scale manufacturing companies. After a qualitative approached data analysis, concerning the professional culture of industrial designers, the paper reveals three main conclusions regarding the importance of being a community, the importance of having flexibility in space and time, and definition of industrial design profession.
Design Oriented Business: From Conception to Validation View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Daniel Nasajon, Claudio Magalhães
This research seeks to study and understand the processes for new businesses validation. The design process often involves getting to a prototype stage, with few projects that include later stages such as pilot production, validation with customers and users, or development support for distribution and sales. Much of the information for product development comes from observing existing users and products, but little attention is paid to later stages after prototype building. Therefore, it is pertinent to ask: What would be the design potentialities in these later stages? Suppose that design plays a relevant role in the developing stages of an enterprise, therefore it is necessary to approximate the design method with business developing techniques and tools. The objective of this research is to know the role of design in the entrepreneurship process and the means by which a product-based business can be validated. To achieve this goal a literature review was conducted involving product and business development, focused on agile models. After this, a project was developed with a business model for the development of a design-oriented business. This project served to verify and evaluate the product creation design tools and business validation techniques. In conclusion, entrepreneurs and designers do not have that many differences, but designers have qualities inherent to their profession that enhance their entrepreneurial ability to validate new products in the market. Thus, it is possible to foresee the expansion and improvement of the design method towards entrepreneurship.
