Design for Mass User Involvement: Winner of NSF/ASME Design Essay competition

"The greatest invention of the nineteenth century," said Alfred North Whitehead, "was the invention of the method of invention." If what characterized the 19th century was the invention of design and what characterized the 20th century was mass production, one can imagine that design could be broadly adopted by the masses of people in the next century. Design methods are powerful tools to create solutions that fulfill the needs of people and improve their lives. Based on emerging trends in design and development as well as projecting current trends in the world today, we propose a new design formalism for the future in 2030 that is suited for a high tech, global manufacturing company. The design formalism involves the user throughout the design process and involves the company in the entire lifecycle of its products. It is believed that this approach will give companies a competitive advantage as it creates a closer relationship to customers as well as creating the best possibilities for reducing impact of products on our natural environment. This new way of organizing the development process in collaboration with users holds many opportunities, but also challenges for companies and researchers. We point to research fields that need to be addressed to be able to implement our proposed formalism. Specifically the questions of product and service integration, learning from the product throughout its lifecycle, orchestrating development in value networks and the role of user as a designer integrated in the company’s development process.