Objective 3: FI and GA Comparison

Almost all participants reported the lack of market research departments in their companies. However, some reported doing some market research related activities which can be described as mostly less organized and hardly documented. The lack of organization in these activities might translate to the company benefitting little from these activities. The majority of participants from both industries revealed monitoring of trends and competition as the most used market research method for both industries. Targeting potential individual clients was also significantly important to GA industry than in the FI industry. Only one participant (from GA industry) reported their company having an organized marketing process.

Figure 55 shows numbers of graduate designers per company. Majority of the FI industry companies had one qualified designer, while majority of GA industry companies had two qualified designers per company.

Figure 55: Number of qualified designers in the participating industries.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

0 1 2 3 4 5

number of companies

Number of qualified designers

GA FI

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Since interventions resulting from this study may involve training of employees, it was important to see how these two systems can potentially interact. When participants were asked what types of relationships they would like to have with educational institutions in addition to offering internships. The suggested relationships were clustered into two groups; Learning from Universities and Learning from Industry. The majority of the participants reported educational institutions having more to learn from industry.

Results show an overwhelming majority of participants willing to incorporate UCD practices onto their PDP and strongly believe these activities are essential for structuring business/ design practices. There was one person per industry that was not willing to incorporate UCD activities to PDP.

Almost all participants from both industries were not aware of the UCD ISO standards. A large number of participants showed interest in learning more about these standards, including all participants from the FI industry. Only two participants (one from each industry) reported being aware of the ISO standards and are both interested in learning more.

Figure 56, shows UCD activities that participants were asked if they performed at their respective companies and at which stages of the PDP. This question also served to test the format that was used for the case studies; to gather information on how UCD practices were applied to specific projects. Thus for each activity the participant had an option of selecting all three stages of the PDP (start, Middle and End). The UCD activities were obtained from ISO 13407 (User-centred design cycle). The responses to the activities showed a lot of similarities between the industries being investigated in terms of the types of UCD activities being performed and at which stages. However, there were a few activities (highlighted) where there were differences between the two industries.

 Informal expert review

For the Graphic & Advertising (GA) design industry, a clear majority of the participants reported performing this activity at the beginning of the PDP. However, for the Furniture & Interior (FI) design industry a small majority of participants failed

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to do this activity; but for the participants that reported doing this activity it was done similarly at the start and middle of the PDP.

 Set measurable criteria for the resultant (usability)

All participants from the GA industry reported performing this activity equally on the three stages of the PDP. Participants from the FI industry that did not do this activity were the same number as the ones that performed this activity at the beginning of the PDP and the number declined as the PDP progresses. Thus, for the FI industry the importance of this activity declines as the PDP progresses.

 Use of mock-ups

Almost all participants performed this activity in the GA industry, with the majority reporting performing the activity equally at the start and middle of the PDP. However, a good majority of participants from the FI industry reported not doing this activity and the remaining participants did the activity in middle stage of the PDP.

 Simulated tasks, (sketches, 3D models, collect user-feedback)

For the GA industry this activity was performed almost equally at all stages of the PDP, with a slight majority at the middle stage. Good majority of participants from the FI industry reported doing this activity at the beginning of the PDP and then declines towards the end of the process.

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181 7.5 Chapter Discussion

Design is viewed as a process or an act of planning which went against researcher’s expectations of participants’ primarily defining design in terms of aesthetics.

Furthermore, usability and process were rated highly in terms of added value of design to the PDP. For the FI industry usability was at the top followed by process;

while for the GA industry process was at the top followed by product aesthetics. A large majority of participants from the GA industry thought user involvement would help the creativity/ innovation of NPD teams. However, participants from the FI industry were equally divided over whether user involvement helps or hinders creativity/ innovation in NPD teams. FI industry benefited from industry standard measurements (anthropometry) i.e. standard height of tables/ chairs.

The majority of participants believed it was essential to involve users at the start stage of the PDP. Moreover, the cumulative calculations also show the “middle”

stage as more important than the “end” stage in user involvement. This is what the researcher expected to be the most ideal way to involve the user in PDP.

Furthermore, first choice and cumulative calculations show product usability mainly measured at the “start” stage of the PDP. However, GA industry seems to measure product usability substantially higher than the FI at the “end” stage of the PDP. This may be attributed to the fact that GA industries’ final product form takes shape late in the PDP, compared to FI industry.

Participants from both industries reported “user reaction” as the most important measure of design effectiveness. The second most important measure of product success was “checking the final product against the objectives” for FI industry; and

“product sales” for GA. Despite “user reaction” being the most important measure of design effectiveness. The first choice analysis for FI industry was “usability” followed by “process”; while GA’s first choice was “process” followed by the “aesthetics”.

These observations can be attributed to the types of products produced by the two industries. The tangibility of the FI products made sense for “usability” to be a measure of design effectiveness (where the user interacts physically with the product). While for GA “aesthetics” as a measure of design effectiveness made sense since graphics and aesthetics can be evaluated visually.