Design emerged and spread at the beginning of the industrial era in a
strongly industrial and product-oriented environment. Therefore it
developed and consolidated around the notion of industrial product. Today,
different voices are calling for a new role for design as a driver of
innovation. Especially the notion of co-design, intended as the process of
involving customers and end users in developing new products and services
has been largely discussed as a source of competitive advantage and as a
key element of innovation for companies. Co-design can help companies in
generating new and alternative solutions that can satisfy the market needs
mainly exploiting approaches and tools that allow customers to express
their creativity. On the contrary scarce attention has been spent on the
phenomenon of “co-designing with companies”, as a participated design
process that takes place between professional designers and people working
in companies. This form of co-design shows different characteristics with
respect to co-designing with end users. It emerges as a complex process
that: (i) aims to apply design methods and competences to investigate the
current problems that impair a company to innovate; (ii) considers codesigners
as
experts,
who
bring
into
the
innovation
process
their
expertise,
along
with
the
company’s
culture,
values,
rules,
processes,
technologies
(which
may
at
the
same
time
impair
or
enable
innovation);
(iii)
is
a learning
process,
during
which
co-designers
can
observe
and
make
practice
with
the
way
in
which
designers
investigate
the
space
of
a problem
and develop
visions
of
the
future
that
can
support
innovation;
(iii)
normally
ends
with
ideas
for
artifacts
and services,
but
also
with
intangibles
results,
such
as
new
business
models,
new
processes
and rules,
new
competences,
new
organizational
structures,
which
may
affect
the
company’s
vision,
strategy,
culture,
leadership
and processes
of
development,
pushing
the
company
towards
transformational
changes.
DRS 2012 Bangkok
