what is good design? - a research driven investigation

What is good design?

Matt FletcherAtomic Object

A research driven investigation

What Is “Good Design”?: An Investigation of the Complexity

and Structure of Design

Julie H. Hertenstein Marjorie B. Platt

Robert W. Veryzer

WHY DOES GOODDESIGN MATTER?

Firms are having a harder & harder time differentiating on a number of traditional factors.

Even a slice of the good design picture is incredibly beneficial.

The study

• 109 industrial designers at a DMI conference

• Corporate and consultant designers

Please tell us your definition and criteria for ‘good design’ (please be as specific as possible in listing aspects/elements of ‘good design’ in your view).

7 CATEGORIES

The breakdown

418 THOUGHTS

14 customer experience 10 business

24 THEMES

Category Themes

Customer perspective• Customer awareness / empathy • Quality • Makes life better / simpler

Brand and brand history / evolution

• Brand • Enduring design • Consistency of product design &

representation

Emotions and feelings• Emotional bond • Positive impact • Desirable

Business performance• Business profits / results • Appropriate for market / culture • Good design process

models or makes of a product, onecould select the model that is best onthe most important attribute (lexi-cographic decision rule), eliminateany models that lack or fall short on akey attribute (elimination-by-aspectsdecision rule), make a selection basedon the model meeting a minimumstandard for each attribute (conjunc-tive decision rule), choose the alter-native that has the largest number ofpositive or acceptable attributes(compensatory decision rule), or even

employ a mixture of two or more ofthese types of decision rules.

The degree to which suchprocessing enters into judgments ofgood design remains unclear; how-ever, that design processing involvessome consideration or interplay inassessing and weighting themes andperceiving design characteristics, atleast at a nonconscious level, seemslikely. Although such relationshipsand processes may be difficult todetect given the gestalt nature of

individuals’ reactions to designs(Berlyne, 1971; Veryzer, 1993), afurther understanding of suchprocessing may be integral to signif-icantly advancing both design theoryand practice.

Brand-emotion linkageIn addition to suggesting thecomplexity and some aspects of thelikely structure of good design, thisresearch offers insight into specificresearch areas. The responses of thesample suggest interlinkages amongaesthetics, function, emotion, andbrand—for example, “Good designrelates to an artifact that is bothaesthetically and functionally pleasingto the consumer” and “Meaningfulconnection between brand andconsumer.” Exploring and under-

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2

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6

8

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12

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% Total Thought Units

Figure 3. “Good design” theme frequencies.

Frequency Themes

Tier 1 > 10% Aesthetic; Functional

Tier 2 7–9% Customer; Emotional; Innovative; Ease of Use

Tier 3 3–4% Value; Brand; Business Results; Communicates; Form–Function

Table 2. Themes most frequently mentioned.

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What Is “Good Design”?

Three tiers:

1. Aesthetic & functional2. Customer experience,

emotional bond, innovative / creative

3. Everything else

Percent Theme13 Aesthetic11 Functional9 Customer experience

8 Emotional bond Innovative / creative

7 Ease of use

4Brand Business profits / results Provides value

3 Form-function relationship Communicates effectively

2Enduring design Quality Positive impact Appropriate environmentally

1

Reflects period Ergonomic Desirable Makes life better Consistency of product design Evolving history of design Appropriate for market Appropriate to product Good design process

Aesthetics & function may dominate, but capture only 24% of good design.

The other three quarters is spread amongst the other attributes.

“The complexity of good design is suggested by the variety and diversity of themes that were identified, ranging from aesthetics to sustainability to emotional bond to business

results.”

Hertenstein, Platt, and Veryzer

“The potential conflict among some of the themes is further evidence of good design’s complexity.”


standing these may provide lucrativeresearch avenues and may havepractical implications.

One especially important andpromising research avenue concernsthe brand–emotion link. Guidelinesfor effective brand managementsuggest that creating an emotionalbond is a key to establishing a brandconnection with the consumer(Keller, 2007; Keller and Lehmann,2006). Thus, brand managersemphasize emotional connectionswith the brand—for example, theemphasis on caring and nurturingthat appears in advertisements forCampbell’s soup. This suggestsdesign researchers as well as otherresearchers (e.g., consumer and mar-keting researchers) might do well toconsider the potential of design to

establish links between brand andemotion and incorporate this intotheir research, especially since bothbrand and emotion emerged asimportant themes in good design.Likewise, design practitioners ormanagers may be able to userecognition of such relationships toglean valuable insight into the likelysuccess of proposed designs in termsof how these interlinkages arerevealed in different designexecutions.

Scale development and designassessmentAnother potential avenue for thiswork involves scale development anddesign assessment. This work wouldseem to be relevant for scale devel-opment for assessing good design,

consumer reactions to design, anddesign measurement (measurementof specific design aspects, properties,or characteristics), and for testingdesign(s). Advances along these linesmay further facilitate the formulationand testing of propositions andhypotheses concerning how various(design/product) characteristics arebest manifested in a design.

Aligning design objectivesAlthough all of these researchimplications would seem to have thepotential to lead to useful, practicaltools and insights for design man-agers, the understanding gained intothe complexity and structure of gooddesign would seem to offer imme-diate applications as a means tobetter align design objectives

Figure 4. Corporate versus consultant responses.

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Des ign Management Jou rna l

Corporate vs. consultantGeneral alignment - 19 of 24 themes were within 2% of each other.

Consultant designers prefer :

• Business profits / results

• Reflects period

Corporate designers prefer :

• Customer experience

• Ease of use

• Quality

That said,

“…the corporate respondents generally have the higher percentage for the customer-related themes…whereas the

consultants have the higher percentage for the business profits/results…where they differ, each group appears to place a higher

emphasis on its direct customer.


Implications and future research

provides a way to be more explicitand more precise about good design.Further, what is judged as being gooddesign may vary by or across differentdemographic groups, market seg-ments, or cultures as well as product/industry contexts; those individualsassessing or encountering a designmay weight the themes differently indifferent contexts. Thus, the struc-ture of good design identified in thisarticle provides a foundation forfuture research examining whichthemes are most relevant and howimportant they are in a particular

context. Understanding contextualdifferences will help to align thethemes—and the definition of gooddesign—with the context.

How people process designSomewhat related to this structureare possibilities concerning howpeople process design. The variousdesign themes identified for gooddesign, as well as the categories,interlinkages, and structure (or pos-sibly even hierarchy) raise interestingquestions relating to individuals’decision processes in encountering

designs. It may be that whetherconsciously or not, people evaluatedesigns as being good or bad in amanner somewhat similar to thatused generally in making decisions.

Decision rules or decisionheuristics refer to various approachesthat people use to consider anddecide about things such as productsthey encounter (Park, 1976; Wright,1976). The rules are used incomparisons across alternatives in achoice set (e.g., a selection of toastersa person may encounter at a store).In comparing several competing

Figure 2. “Good design” themes and relationship.

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Des ign Management Jou rna l

Further research (continued)

• Understand how people process good design

• Brand-emotion linkage

• Design assessment & aligning team objectives

“Having a shared understanding or definition of good design can be essential to the success of a design team and helpful in resolving conflicts between interdisciplinary

design team members.”


Limitations

• The three authors sorted and categorized the thought units. Others, especially other types of designers, will likely categorize differently.

• Credit where credit is due : the authors have not necessarily uncovered anything that craftsman internalized hundreds of years ago.

Questions for discussion

Are these results something you feel you can use and apply, or are they too abstract?

Thank you!

Title slide logo created by Jonathan D’Mello from the Noun Project