Defining Design’s Newer Role

Defining Design’s Newer Role

Today’s designers are elevating industrial design from the drawing room to the board room.

Open almost any industry magazine and you will see that the field of design is experiencing a renaissance. New columns, such as this one, are being created solely to focus on design issues and trends.  Consumer product companies are funneling millions of dollars into “design centers” and elevating design managers to executive positions.
 

Reade Harpham

Business Week has hailed design as “the Next Big Thing after Six Sigma.” In his latest book, DESIGN, Innovate, Differentiate, Communicate, management guru Tom Peters wrote, “We view design as a finishing off process, but we must understand that a thoroughgoing design sensibility can effectively drive enterprise strategy, and cease to be a neglected second cousin.”  

While the traditional field of industrial design has not changed its offerings drastically over the years, the business world’s recognition of design as a differeintor has sparked this renaissance. Today, leading consumer product companies are capturing market share by utilizing design, helping increase brand awareness, connecting with users and creating entirely new product categories.  

However, as the offshore trend spreads to other disciplines, much of traditional design offerings will become a commodity. Designers need to step back and refocus their attention to new areas that can benefit from a designer’s unique perspective.

One area that provides a great deal of potential is medical product development. The drivers for medical product companies are much different than their consumer product counterparts. While aesthetics, brand awareness and a clear understanding of user needs are important aspects of medical product development, they are not critical to the success of a medical product.  

Functionality and reliability are the cornerstones for successful medical product development, and without them the results could literally be deadly. How, then, can industrial designers redefine their roles to be successful in the medical product development continuum?

 

Design as a Communicator

Understanding the end user of the product is an important aspect of any industrial designer’s role—and understanding the end users of design should be the foundation of the designer’s new role.

The new users of design are CEOs and directors of research and development, marketing, engineering and manufacturing. Without input from and alignment with these key players in the development continuum, even the best efforts of industrial designers will go unrealized.

To be successfully integrated into a development program, the benefits of design must be effectively communicated to these diverse disciplines in a way they can understand and respect. Designers need to redefine themselves as design communicators, utilizing communication skills not on how a product should look, feel and function, but on how the benefits of design can have a positive impact on the needs of research and development, marketing, engineering and manufacturing. 

Design as Strategy

Medical product companies are beginning to expect design as an integrated offering from development partners but tend to have preconceived notions regarding when, where and how much design should be utilized. As most of their previous dealings were likely limited to external industrial design consultancies, few have had the opportunity to understand and experience the value a fully integrated design offering brings to their development program.

In a newer role, the designer must now focus on understanding the level of design sensitivity the client brings, recognizing and communicating the new opportunities for design to be integrated and developing a design strategy that effectively utilizes design.

Design as an Integrator

In the medical product development process, tradeoffs inevitably must be made to remain on time and on budget. During these tradeoffs, rarely does industrial design take precedence over other disciplines—nor should it. The design focus should come early, when the path of the program is being defined.

Designers must now focus on integrating industrial design into the early stages of the development process, by participating in and impacting the development of “requirement” documents.

A sophisticated design development partner will make sure that the design direction is set early and the entire team is aligned. This early integration into the materials that guide the life cycle of a product will ensure design needs are met—even this is not part of the critical path to completion.

Design’s New Role

Understanding the needs and expectations of design’s many end users, developing a strategy that effectively utilizes design offerings to meet those needs and integrating design early in the development process to assure proper representation in the product requirements are just a few ways designers can elevate themselves from the traditional “industrial” designer roles.

To thrive, designers must continually look for new methods to allow the benefits of design to reach other aspects of medical product development.

According to Business Week, the number of industrial designers graduating annually in China has increased from 1,500 to 10,000 over the past five years. In the not-too-distant future, industrial designers will have to face the reality that the traditional skills they offer are no longer unique. Unless current designers redefine their roles, they will become obsolete.

Reade Harpham is an industrial design strategist for Battelle Healthcare Products in Columbus, OH.  With more than 100 medical device development professionals, Battelle Healthcare Products is a leading provider of outsourced applied research, product development and sustaining engineering to the medical device industry. For more information, please contact Reade at (614) 424-5738 or [email protected].