The Interaction Between Design, Product and People
The Interaction Between Design, Product and Person
“Design – Product – People” is a closed system that has nothing to do with the mass feeling of the necessity of owning all kinds of products that are not part of the specific lifestyle, habits, daily routine, free time and hobbies characteristic of each person. Communication between the person and the product must be open and adequate. People in their role as “consumers” or “profiled customers” form their preferences for products, building up their affinity for certain product brands over the years. They identify with the products they own and exploit throughout their entire life cycle. These are experiences related to mental needs, which create a deep emotional attachment to the products that are used, generating memories, telling stories and sharing moments with other people. The product intensely influences the human essence, in addition to satisfying real needs and wants. Products whose impact and side effects of their usefulness have been understood have been thoroughly analyzed during their development, taking into account the surrounding environment with which they interact. This creates an attraction towards it and a strong need to own it, which will logically attract more suitable users. In this direction, it is important to take into account one of the most significant principles that defining the design of a product does not only refer to its appearance and superficial perception, but also to its function and usefulness. They interact in an inseparable whole, which in itself cannot be divided into two or more independent parts, and logically leads to a real product, and not to self-serving arbitrariness on the part of its developers. The analogy that can lead us to the essence of product design, its appearance, function and content, can be related to us, people, and our perceptions of each other. Our appearance and character are often the subject of judgment and perception as separate components that build human authenticity. Usually, the basic impression of a person is formed, resulting from an accelerated process that forms a compressed image in order to be reduced to an acceptable one for the observer. The criteria are always reliable, at least according to the observer’s judgment, but also deeply biased and subjective in their genesis, due to the failure to assume that the appearance and content in a person have an algorithm and interrelationships. The attempt to evaluate our content through our appearance is formed by the biological specifics of our visual features. Our appearance cannot be autonomous without the proper functioning of the organs and the resulting chemical processes, which directly reflect on consciousness, emotions, overall behavior and characteristic movements in the body. The standard structure of the musculoskeletal system and the good condition of the organs are sufficient for our existence and functioning as human beings, but it is also necessary to take into account the processes of thought, psyche, habits, etc. Despite the subjectivity of human criteria, people would not highly rate a rude, impudent and arrogant person, even if his appearance creates pleasant impressions and initially arouses visual preferences. There are many cases of purposefully overexposed visual characteristics of the design, the purpose of which is to conceal the poor-quality idea, incorrectly built functions in the product and its low efficiency and benefits. The product can be balanced through a combination of a meaningful and properly developed idea, appropriately built functions, a structure of well-selected materials and a precisely built appearance. Visual information during the operation of the product is extremely important and is among the main requirements. When looking and touching, there are a number of factors that reflect on our senses – they subconsciously cause various associations, analogies, emotions, memories, longings, etc. “Multi-layeredness” is purposefully created in each product development, investing an extremely large intellectual resource in this concept, analysis, study and construction of the product structure in the development activity. Striving to capture, stimulate and correctly direct the focus on the relevant product, unobtrusively awakening consumer impulses for the need to own it. This rich toolkit of techniques, contained as principles and methods in social psychology, has application in the product design process. This encompasses the study and analysis of psycho-physiological perceptions, interaction with the environment and mental behavior of the customer – how it affects the thinking, behavior, habits, desires and imagination of the person. Human senses are used intensively when examining the product, touching its information and functional zones, handling it and its intensive exploitation, and in some cases perceiving sounds, as well as capturing by the sense of smell certain odors emitted by materials. How it affects physiologically and which layers of the human psyche it affects, is indicative of the decisive and key role of product designers in the process of developing a product. They emphasize a variety of elements in it in order to express and achieve something much more than simply purchasing a product in the development of which they participated. They have a moral obligation not to abuse and not to lightly guide people towards a mass desire to obsess over their lives with products. Their main task is to give meaning, add content, solve problems and correctly guide consumers towards products that correspond to their essence, to their lifestyle, habits and needs. People often like to identify with the objects of their daily life, work and leisure, and this is a great responsibility for product designers. They observe, create, educate and analyze the consequences of using a given product, in which they have a key role in its development.
“Designing a product is designing a relationship.” – Steve Rogers
