Dear Fas,
Thank you for your message.
My approach to measuring the contribution of design was less sophisticated
than James Moultries. I was interested in ball park figures for the reasons
below.
Measuring the contribution of design is really really difficult. Collecting
the numbers is the easiest part. Deciding what to collect numbers about is
the really hard part.
For every claim that designs and a particular design group/designer have
made a measurable contribution there are many alternative
explanations/claims or the same measurable impact/effect.
Other claimants include management, sales, advertising, distribution,
retail, government (multiple levels and departments), educators, mass media,
other design fields that contributed different aspects of the design, those
encouraging innovation, etc. etc.
Also is good to remember that the lead-in time for most innovations is
typically 13-17 years. A lot of contribution happens in this time by a
variety of players.
Think for example of (say) Apple.
First, have Apple made a positive contribution. At the moment, in share
equity terms, the increase in financial numbers relating to Apple are
significant. In terms of design quality, the iPhone is certainly one of the
best four phones on the market and leads sales at the moment. (I've been
looking at this issue over three decades so that gives a perspective that
things that are leading at the moment may not do so in a year or two -
anyone remember Zenith Computers (some of best commercial laptops in the
80s)? Some outcomes have been good, e.g. phones are easier to use. Some are
less good, e.g. individuals' increased engagement with electronics leading
to less 'real world' personal engagement, weak sustainability etc. There are
extensive problems to be addressed in choosing good evaluation metrics
relating to impact and contribution and how good and bad are offset against
each other.
Second, is the question of who did the designing . Most electronic product
design for products such as those sold by Apple can be seen in terms of a
five level tier of design:
Microprocessor design
System On Chip design
Single board computer design
Finished product design
Branded product
In parallel is the extensive design work relating to the manufacturing
technologies - from the machines that make the computer chips all the way
through to the machines that fold cardboard for the livery that the product
is branded in.
Apple's design work only covers a very small part of this design activity,
yet all of it is needed to make the product successful.
At the same time, all the other areas of a business can justifiably claim
that any benefit from a product is primarily due to their work. One way to
test would be to stop that area and see what the difference is. But this
typically either results in no change (e.g. close the design office for a
day) or 100% change (e.g. close the retails stores, or distribution for a
day).
In addition, there are many other actors external to a business that can
also claim that over the short or long term they have been the defining
influence on whether products were successful.
In addition to that, are the claims of researchers and academics who draw
attention to the effects positive and negative of larger scale forces and
factors of which others are minor players.
So...... after trying out a lot of different metrics to evaluate relative
value of impact and contribution of design, I identified one consistent
surrogate evaluation metric: 'the annual costs of design teams'.
The 'annual costs of design teams' acts as a reasonable surrogate metric
because it reflects the market value of design activity. The 'annual costs
of design teams' are bounded top and bottom by competitive factors closely
linked to the value of their design outputs. For example, if they are not
paid enough then competitors can produce better products, and if they are
over resourced, then internal business financial pressures will act to
restrain them. It's not perfect. It has, however, about the same level of
utility and error as a measure such as GDP.
The figures for 'annual costs of design teams' for individual businesses or
industries are relatively easy to get ball park figures on. Some firms will
tell you their internal design division budget , otherwise, it's relatively
easy to put ball park figures on a 'seat' basis using conventional costing
methods (salary, on-costs, resources, office space, management overhead etc)
.
Apologies I haven't published this material yet. I've research from the 70s
onwards I haven't published. I've been working my way through it. The
current lack of institutional funding for publishing in journals and
conferences has slowed things down. I'm now publishing my research and
analyses direct to the public domain. This email describes some of this
research. I claim moral ownership of this material, the research and
research findings and ask that people reference and credit it appropriately
if they use it in their own research and publications.
Best wishes,
Terry
==
Dr Terence Love
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
[log in to unmask]
Mob +61 (0)4 3497 5848
==
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Filippo
A. Salustri
Sent: Friday, 15 June 2012 8:04 AM
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: Re: Open the Pod Doors, Hal. Was Terry's 1,2,3 of design methods.
Terry,
How was "design work undertaken" measured? Person-hours? Cost? Number of
projects?
(Apologies if you already answered this - I'm still catching up on this
thread.)
/fas
On 12 June 2012 11:13, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> In the best estimates I've come across (mine and James Moultrie from
> Cambridge Uni), the Art and Design fields cover around 5% of the total
> design work undertaken.
>
--
\V/_
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
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