Tutorial 3 - Designing Pleasurable Products; Timeless Laws and Current Trends

Instructor

Patrick W. Jordan

Contemporary Trends Institute
65 Barton Road
Butleigh
Somerset BA6 8TH
UK

 Duration

Full Day Tutorial
Abstract

This tutorial provides an overview of how to design compelling and successful products and services. The approach described looks at the factors which make products and services useful, usable and a positive pleasure to own and use. Methods and techniques for identifying user requirements and creating pleasurable products and services are introduced.

Creating a successful mass-market product or service requires that we have an in-depth understanding of consumers and of their needs and wishes. These needs and wishes include the practical and functional aspects of use, but go far beyond that to include how the product or service fits with people's values, aspirations and lifestyles.

The tutorial will look at how people interact with and relate to products and services. It will introduce a framework — the Four Pleasures — which describes the different ways in which these can appeal to people. This framework has been used as the basis for creating many of the world's most successful products.

Numerous illustrative examples will be given along with a case study showing the framework's application in the design process.

The tutorial will also look at current lifestyle trends that are affecting society and the marketplace all over the world. These trends reflect the attitudes and behaviours of people in contemporary society. They have important implications for how to design products and services that are relevant and appealing and which will succeed in the market now and in the future.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Patrick W. Jordan is an international design and marketing consultant, author and professional speaker. His methods and ideas have influenced the design of many of the products that we find in our homes, cities and workplaces.

Pat is Owner and CEO of the Contemporary Trends Institute [CTI], an international trends and branding consultancy. Clients of CTI include multinational companies from many different industry sectors, including: aerospace, consumer goods, computers and IT, consumer electronics, medical, telecommunications, food and beverage, leisure and retail.

Pat is a former Vice-President of Symbian, where he was also head of design. Symbian is the world's largest mobile-communications consortium, jointly owned by Motorola, Samsung, Nokia, Psion, Ericsson, Sony and Panasonic. In addition, Symbian also licenses to Kenwood, Philips, Sanyo and Siemans. Prior to that he was Director of Trends and Identity within the Domestic Appliances and Personal Care divisions of Philips, Europe 's largest electronics company.

Dr. Jordan has been invited to lecture at conferences and seminars all over the world. He has over 100 publications in peer reviewed journals, books and conference proceedings. He has written or edited 6 books, all of which have reached # 1 in the Amazon.com category bestsellers lists. His books include Designing Pleasurable Products (Taylor and Francis 2000) which has become a standard design and marketing text within both industry and academia and the bestseller How to Make Brilliant Stuff that People Love and Make Big Money Out of It (Wylie 2002).

Pat has a visiting lectureship at London College of Fashion and Central St Martin 's College of Art and Design. He is also a guest lecturer at numerous universities in many different countries. Pat is on the advisory board of Delft University where he reviews and advises on the university's design research agenda and is a non-executive director of Sense Worldwide a leading international trends bureau.

Pat is head of the Trends and Strategy section of the Industrial Designers Society of America. He is featured in Marquis Who's Who in the World and The Dictionary of International Biography. He has also held the Nierenberg Chair at Carnegie-Mellon University , the most prestigious appointment in US design education.

Dr Jordan acts as a consultant to many of the world's most successful brands and has advised the US and UK governments on public policy issues. He has won numerous professional awards for design and related activities.

Attendee Background

This tutorial is suitable for all practitioners and researchers involved in the design, marketing and creation of products and services. It is suitable for all levels from beginner to experrienced.

Teaching Methods
The workshop will consist of a series of presentations given by the instructor interwoven with a series of participant exercises addressing the issues covered in the presentations.

Schedule
This tutorial will demonstrate methods and techniques for creating products and services that are not only usable, but which are also a positive pleasure to own and use.

• Introduction. An introduction to the concept of pleasurable products is given. This is described in the context of a hierarchy of consumer needs which moves from functionality, through usability to pleasure.
• The Four Pleasures. The four pleasures is a framework within which positive human experiences can be considered. This framework can be used as a means of structuring a ‘product benefit specification’ — the set of positive emotions and experiences that a particular product or service should engender. A series of examples will be given of products which have succeeded because of the positive experiences that they bring to their users. What is regarded as a positive experience may be culturally mediated. Examples will be given of products that have succeeded or failed in different countries due to cultural factors.
• Creating Pleasurable Products and Services. This part of the workshop will concentrate on how to design a product or service in order to engender a particular positive response. The link between the aesthetic, functional and interaction properties of a product or service and the responses to it will be considered. Cultural factors which effect the nature of these links will be discussed.
• Trends. Eight major lifestyle trends will be presented. These trends describe attitudes and behaviors that are affecting the ways that we live and work, both now and in the future. Each trend will be defined and the underlying causes of the trend explained. The implications of each trend for the design and marketing of products and services will be discussed and examples will be given of products and services that have succeeded through connecting with each of the trends.