francois et al.
 
i am somewhere in mexico, can´t write much except to say that i find the limitation to products even more limiting:
a "product" denotes the result of a process of production (manufacturing).  this was all that the industry of the 18th and 19th century was interested in: what left the factory.  designers accepted industry´s limited responsibility by making product attractive.  
contemporary design cannot possibly be so limiting. there are stakeholders that are only concerned with finances, others with manufacturing, others with sales, still more with the company´s image, once on the market, it turns out that buyers are not necessarily users, there are people who define what others use, mantian parts of it, educate in the use of technology, recycle, ... there are environmental interest groups that determine how something is perceived, governments who assure interface compliance, etc. etc.  
what is aproduct fort one is use for another, etc.
my point is that products are myths, leftovers of the industrial era confinements to which we need to overcome in order to move into what matters.
klaus

 
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De: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design en nombre de FrFrancois-Xavier Nsenga
Enviado el: vie 22/12/2006 19:57
Para: [log in to unmask]
Asunto: Re: Beyond Definitions (reply from Ken Friedman)



Hello, Klaus, Nicola, Ken, and others!

In the perspective of extending the meaning of the concept
"Industrial/product design", from the relatively limited 17th-20th
century western industry context to a more expanded contemporary context
of several other areas of professional involvement, a few years ago we
(then at the University of Montreal) suggested instead the adoption and
use of the following more generic expressions (in French, for which
English and/or other languages equivalent could be coined if
appropriate):

- Conception de produits (instead of Industrial/product design)
- Concepteur de produits (instead of industrial designer, or designer in
general, with specific sub-field added, eventually)

"Produits" may mean here any artifact (product of any human
contrivance), both material and immaterial, in the sense of the few
examples suggested below by Klaus.

Season greetings to all!

Francois
Montreal

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Original post from Klaus:

niicola,
yes, it may help you realize what is carried over from the industrial
area,
but i find the attribute "industrial" unnecessarily confining by
committing
yourself to an industrial/material production perspective.  as such, it
excludes: designing human interfaces, designing content for websites,
designing political campaigns, designing an organization, designing a
corporate design strategy, etc.   these all are aspects of design
increasingly worth attending to.
klaus