Industrial Design

What is Industrial Design?

• The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) defines industrial design as “the professional service of creating and
developing concepts and specifications that optimize the function, value, and appearance of products and systems for the
mutual benefit of both user and manufacturer.”
• This definition is broad enough to include the activities of the entire product development team.
• In fact, industrial designers focus their attention upon the form and user interaction of products.
• Dreyfuss (1967)2 lists five critical goals that industrial designers can help a team to achieve when developing new products:
• Utility: The product’s human interfaces should be safe, easy to use, and intuitive. Each feature should be shaped so that it
communicates its function to the user.
• Appearance: Form, line, proportion, and color are used to integrate the product into a pleasing whole.
• Ease of maintenance: Products must also be designed to communicate how they are to be maintained and repaired.
• Low costs: Form and features have a large impact on tooling and production costs, so these must be considered jointly by
the team.
• Communication: Product designs should communicate the corporate design philosophy and mission through the visual
qualities of the products.
“Industrial designers are typically educated in four-year university programs where they study sculpture and form; develop
drawing, presentation, and model-making skills; and gain a basic understanding of materials, manufacturing techniques, and
finishes. In industrial practice, designers receive additional exposure to basic engineering, advanced manufacturing/fabrication
processes, and common marketing practices. Their ability to express ideas visually can facilitate the process of concept
development for the team. Industrial designers may create most of the concept sketches, models, and renderings used by the
team throughout the development process, even though the ideas come from the entire team”
The Industrial Design Process
• Most industrial designers follow a process for designing the aesthetics and ergonomics of a product.
• Although this approach may vary depending on the firm and the nature of the project, industrial
designers also generate multiple concepts and then work with engineers to narrow these options
down through a series of evaluation steps. Specifically, the ID process can be thought of as
consisting of the following phases:
1. Investigation of customer needs.
2. Conceptualization.
3. Preliminary refinement.
4. Further refinement and final concept selection.
5. Control drawings or models.
6. Coordination with engineering, manufacturing, and external vendors
• 1. Investigation of Customer Needs :
Industrial designers are skilled at recognizing issues involving user interactions, ID involvement is crucial in the needs process.
For example, in researching customer needs for a new medical instrument, the team would study an operating room, interview
physicians, and conduct focus groups.
While involvement of marketing, engineering, and ID certainly leads to a common, comprehensive understanding of customer
needs for the whole team, it particularly allows the industrial designer to gain an intimate understanding of the interactions
between the user and the product.
2. Conceptualization:
Once the customer needs and constraints are understood, the industrial designers help the team conceptualize the product.
During the concept generation stage engineers naturally focus their attention upon finding solutions to the technical subfunctions
of the product.
At this time, the industrial designers concentrate upon creating the product’s form and user interfaces.
Industrial designers make simple sketches, known as thumbnail sketches, of each concept.
These sketches are a fast and inexpensive medium for expressing ideas and evaluating possibilities. Fig. shows two different types
of mobile phone concept sketches.
The proposed concepts may then be matched and combined with the technical solutions under exploration. Concepts are grouped
and evaluated by the team according to the customer needs, technical feasibility, cost, and manufacturing considerations.
• 3. Preliminary Refinement:
In the preliminary refinement phase, industrial designers build models of the most promising concepts.
Soft models are typically made in full scale using foam or foam-core board. They are the second-fastest method—only
slightly slower than sketches—used to evaluate concepts.
Although generally quite rough, these models are invaluable because they allow the development team to express and
visualize product concepts in three dimensions.
Concepts are evaluated by industrial designers, engineers, marketing personnel, and (at times) potential customers
through the process of touching, feeling, and modifying the models.
Typically, designers will build as many models as possible depending on time and financial constraints. Concepts that are
particularly difficult to visualize require more models than do simpler ones.
4. Further Refinement and Final Concept Selection:
At this stage, industrial designers often switch from soft models and sketches to hard models and information-intensive
drawings known as renderings.
Renderings show the details of the design and often depict the product in use. Drawn in two or three dimensions, they
convey a great deal of information about the product.
Renderings are often used for color studies and for testing customers’ reception to the proposed product’s features and
functionality. See, for example, the rendering shown in Fig. (mentioned earlier).
The final refinement step before selecting a concept is to create hard models.
These models are still technically nonfunctional yet are close replicas of the final design with a very realistic look and feel.
They are made from wood, dense foam, plastic, or metal; are painted and textured; and have some “working” features
such as buttons that push or sliders that move. Because a hard model can cost thouusands of dollars, a product
development team usually has the budget to make only a few.
• 5. Control Drawings or Models:
• Industrial designers complete their development process by making control drawings or
control models of the final concept.
• Control drawings or models document functionality, features, sizes, colors, surface finishes,
and key dimensions.
• Although they are not detailed part drawings (known as engineering drawings), they can
be used to fabricate final design models and other prototypes.
• Typically, these drawings or models are given to the engineering team for detailed design
of the part.
• 6. Coordination with Engineering, Manufacturing, and External Vendors:
• The industrial designers must continue to work closely with engineering and
manufacturing personnel throughout the subsequent product development process.
• Some industrial design consulting firms offer quite comprehensive product development
services, including detailed engineering design and the selection and management of
outside vendors of materials, tooling, components, and assembly services.
Management of the Industrial
Design Process
Industrial design is typically involved in the overall product development process during several different phases. The timing of the
ID effort depends upon the nature of the product being designed. To explain the timing of the ID effort it is convenient to classify
products as technology-driven products and user-driven products.
• Technology-driven products: The primary characteristic of a technology-driven product is that its core benefit is based on its
technology, or its ability to accomplish a specific technical task.
• While such a product may have important aesthetic or ergonomic requirements, consumers will most likely purchase the
product primarily for its technical performance.
• For example, a hard disk drive for a computer is largely technology driven. It follows that for the development team of a
technology-driven product, the engineering or technical requirements will be paramount and will dominate development efforts.
• Accordingly, the role of ID is often limited to packaging the core technology. This entails determining the product’s external
appearance and ensuring that the product communicates its technological capabilities and modes of interaction to the user.
• User-driven products: The core benefit of a user-driven product is derived from the functionality of its interface and/or its
aesthetic appeal.
• Typically there is a high degree of user interaction for these products. Accordingly, the user interfaces must be safe, easy to use,
and easy to maintain.
• The product’s external appearance is often important to differentiate the product and to create pride of ownership.
• For example, an office chair is largely user driven. While these products may be technically sophisticated, the technology does
not differentiate the product; thus, for the product development team, the ID considerations will be more important than the
technical requirements.
• The role of engineering may still be important to determine any technical features of the product; however, because the
technology is often already established, the development team focuses on the user aspects of the product.
The role of industrial design according to
product type.
Assessing the Quality of Industrial
Design
• Assessing the quality of ID for a finished product is an inherently subjective task. However, we can qualitatively determine whether ID has
accomplished its goals by considering each aspect of the product that is influenced by ID. Below are five categories for evaluating a product.
1. Quality of the User Interface
This is a rating of how easy the product is to use. Interface quality is related to the product’s appearance, feel, and modes of interaction.
• Do the features of the product effectively communicate their operation to the user?
• Is the product’s use intuitive?
• Are all features safe?
• Have all potential users and uses of the product been considered?
Examples of product-specific questions include:
• Is the grip comfortable? • Does the control knob turn easily and smoothly?
• Is the power switch easy to locate?
• Is the display easy to read and understand?
2. Emotional Appeal
This is a rating of the overall consumer appeal of the product. Appeal is achieved in part through appearance, feel, sound, and smell.
• Is the product attractive? Is it exciting?
• Does the product express quality?
• What images come to mind when viewing it?
• Does the product inspire pride of ownership?
• Does the product evoke feelings of pride among the development team and sales staff? Examples of product-specific questions include:
• How does the car door sound when slammed?
• Does the hand tool feel solid and sturdy?
• Does the appliance look good on the kitchen counter?
3. Ability to Maintain and Repair the Product:
This is a rating of the ease of product maintenance and repair. Maintenance and repair should be considered along with the other user
interactions.
• Is the maintenance of the product obvious? Is it easy?
• Do product features effectively communicate disassembly and assembly procedures? Examples of product-specific questions include:
• How easy and obvious is it to clear a paper jam in the printer?
• How difficult is it to disassemble and clean the food processor?
• How long does it take to change the batteries in the remote controller?
4. Appropriate Use of Resources:
This is a rating of how well resources were used in satisfying the customer needs. Resources typically refer to the dollar expenditures on
ID and other functions. These factors tend to drive costs such as manufacturing. A poorly designed product, one with unnecessary
features, or a product made from an exotic material will affect tooling, manufacturing processes, assembly processes, and the like. This
category asks whether these investments were well spent.
• How well were resources used to satisfy the customer requirements?
• Is the material selection appropriate (in terms of cost and quality)?
• Is the product over- or underdesigned (does it have features that are unnecessary or neglected)?
• Were environmental/ecological factors considered?
5. Product Differentiation This is a rating of a product’s uniqueness and consistency with the corporate identity. This differentiation
arises predominantly from appearance.
• Will a customer who sees the product in a store be able to identify it because of its appearance?
• Will it be remembered by a consumer who has seen it in an advertisement?
• Will it be recognized when seen on the street?
• Does the product fit with or enhance the corporate identity?
The Impact of Computer-Based Tools on
the ID Process
• Computer-aided design (CAD) tools have had a significant
impact on industrial designers and their work.
• Using modern 3D CAD tools, industrial designers can
generate, display, and rapidly modify three-dimensional
designs on high-resolution computer displays.
• In this manner, ID can potentially generate a greater number
of detailed concepts more quickly, which may lead to more
innovative design solutions.
• The visual realism of 3D CAD images can enhance
communication within the product development team and
eliminate much of the inaccuracy of the manually generated
sketches historically provided by industrial designers.
• Furthermore, 3D CAD systems may be used to generate
control models or drawings, and these data can be directly
transferred to engineering design systems, allowing the
entire development process to be more easily integrated.