Exploring design innovation and performance: the roles of issue related to design strategy

Abstract

This study examined design cases involving new product development related to Taiwanese electric and computer firms for exploring the strategic groups formed by local firms and their performance in new product development and other issues related to industrial-design innovation strategy. The questionnaire survey demonstrates that Taiwanese electronic and computer firms, in terms of industrial-design innovation strategy, can be grouped into technical innovation, gradual innovation, application innovation, and aggressive innovation groups. In their response to the challenges faced, firms in different strategic groups exhibited different financial and non-financial performance. Furthermore, they differed significantly in dealing with industrial-design activities, particularly new product-development types, product design features, motivations, and design appeals. Differences in these aspects may be the reason for their differences in new product-development performance.

The Research for Exploring Product Design Characteristics by SEM via Correlated Innovation and Design Strategy

“…Studies from Hsu attempted to analyze the product design in enterprises from the aspects of innovation type, design feature, target market, and design appeal and he considers design characteristics the concrete practice of design strategy [39,67]. As a result, a third hypothesis is offered in the study:…”

“…As far as design strategy is concerned, variables include four major strategic dimensions: reinforcing R&D ability, reinforcing R&D ability, reducing production cost, ensuring product quality, and uplifting enterprise image, which are majorly selected from [31,66]. At last, variables regarding design characteristics contain product function, operation, appearance, and cost dimensions, which are chosen from [31,39].…”

“…Moreover, Chang categorized the key points of product design into the following five facets: 1) change in product function, for example, change of product capability, function, and structure; 2) change in product use such as change in operation, carry along, maintenance, and storage; 3) change in product style including the change in product form, color, and graphics; 4) change in product cost including change of the manufacturing cost and marketing cost; and 5) change in product package such as change of product packaging design as a part of the product design strategy [60]. Hsu claim that product design characteristics can make possible the marketization of innovation strategy and can serve as the concrete criteria for the innovation analysis [31,39]. Another hypothesis, therefore, is offered in this study:…”

“…However, in the practical execution of product development, it is a challenge for designers to manipulate product design so as to reach the innovation goal in an enterprise. In studies of [31,39], it has been found that enterprises have certain practical ways in product design. However, rare literature can be found in the relation model between enterprise's innovation strategy and design strategy (DS).…”

An exploratory study into everyday problem solving in the design process of medical devices

“…In order to solve problems, individuals need access to resources/capitals (Daniels and DeJonge 2010), and problems can require solutions that combine the knowledge, efforts, and abilities of people with diverse perspectives (Brown and Eisenhardt 1998;Brusoni and Prencipe 2013;Felin and Zenge 2014). We focus on one class of problem -design problems: Design problems are often complex, ill-defined and do not have obvious solutions (Jonassen 2000;Hsu 2009). Dorst and Cross (2001) suggest that designers treat all problems as ill-defined: We take their viewpoint and as such the problems described in this paper are ill-defined problems.…”