Abstract
More and more companies are trying various external design resources to meet their innovation needs. For example, design competitions can bring many innovative design ideas to enterprises, but leading, managing, and assessing innovation from a design competition is difficult for an enterprise, and there are limited reference materials and research available on the topic to help enterprises take full advantage of this resource. By studying the Thermaltake Creative Design Competition for six years and combining a literature review, empirical research, and interviews, the authors of this paper explores how to use design competitions as an effective resource for commercial design research and innovative concept exploration. The findings indicate that. 1) The company, using participatory design methodology to manage design competitions, needs to have sufficient R&D ability to assist the organiser and contestants to execute their objectives. 2) The subject of the competition and the consumer needs should be defined and transferred clearly to the contestants by the instruction or presentation at beginning. 3) A design seminar is a helpful co-design process, which allows the organiser and participants to work on design together. 4) The mutual benefit is important in participatory design competitions. For example, while the company explores innovative design concepts through the competition, the entrants earn design practice and design cooperation. This study puts forward some practical and theoretical findings in the field of innovation management, which can be a reference for enterprises to use design competitions as an effective innovation design method.
Keywords
Design competition, Design Methods, Participatory Design, Design management, Design resource
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2019.08113
Citation
Chao, L.(2019) Participatory Design Methodology in Design Competition Practice, in Börekçi, N., Koçyıldırım, D., Korkut, F. and Jones, D. (eds.), Insider Knowledge, DRS Learn X Design Conference 2019, 9-12 July, Ankara, Turkey. https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2019.08113
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Participatory Design Methodology in Design Competition Practice
More and more companies are trying various external design resources to meet their innovation needs. For example, design competitions can bring many innovative design ideas to enterprises, but leading, managing, and assessing innovation from a design competition is difficult for an enterprise, and there are limited reference materials and research available on the topic to help enterprises take full advantage of this resource. By studying the Thermaltake Creative Design Competition for six years and combining a literature review, empirical research, and interviews, the authors of this paper explores how to use design competitions as an effective resource for commercial design research and innovative concept exploration. The findings indicate that. 1) The company, using participatory design methodology to manage design competitions, needs to have sufficient R&D ability to assist the organiser and contestants to execute their objectives. 2) The subject of the competition and the consumer needs should be defined and transferred clearly to the contestants by the instruction or presentation at beginning. 3) A design seminar is a helpful co-design process, which allows the organiser and participants to work on design together. 4) The mutual benefit is important in participatory design competitions. For example, while the company explores innovative design concepts through the competition, the entrants earn design practice and design cooperation. This study puts forward some practical and theoretical findings in the field of innovation management, which can be a reference for enterprises to use design competitions as an effective innovation design method.