The future of Industrial Design

The future of Industrial Design

Survey results February 2022

The future of Industrial Design

Introduction Last year we took a look at the evolution of industrial design: where it’s been, what’s happening now, and where it’s heading.

The presentation can be found on our website.

We’ve delivered it as a talk to several internal design teams.

Please get in touch if you’d like to schedule one - it’s much better with the voiceover and always stimulates a healthy discussion.

We also posted a short questionnaire to help assess which issues affecting ID are most important, and the level of readiness for the changes ahead.

This brief report summarises our findings, allowing you to compare your situation to an industry-wide view. We hope you find it interesting and useful.

Please subscribe to our content and follow us on LinkedIn for further insights.

Tim Perry Director

The future of Industrial Design

Respondents

Sectors

Company size (employees)

Which sector do you work in?

What is your company size?

Other 18% Telecoms Automotive

Healthcare

35%

3%

Tech

6%

Small 1-1,000

41%

9%

59% 29%

Large 1,000+

Consulting

Functions

Roles

What function do you work in?

Which role best matches your job title?

Innovation/NPD

Other Design research & insights 3% 3% UX/UI/ 3% service design 6% Design strategy

Other Designer

8% 9%

Design leadership & mangement 41%

12%

Junior Designer

32% Industrial design

44%

15%

24% Senior/ Principal

CDO/Director/ Head of

Survey

We asked you to rate the impact of

9 issues affecting Industrial Design and your readiness for them

Remote collaboration

Design for direct to consumer (D2C)

Systematic foresight

Delivering on sustainability commitments

Designing for diversity (D4D)

Designing with data

Design and research ops

Human machine interlace (AI)

Design as a change agent

Impact vs Readiness (all respondents)

5 areas of high impact and low

Huge

Results

DCA DRO DOS IMPACT

readiness

DWD

- Design as a change agent

HMI

- Design and research ops - Delivering on sustainability commitments

D4D

D2C

None

- Systematic foresight - Designing with data

RC

SF

READINESS

No capability

Industry leading

DCA

DRO

DOS

SF

DWD

HMI

D4D

D2C

RC

Design as a change agent

Design and research ops

Delivering on sustainability commitments

Systematic foresight

Designing with data

Human machine interlace (AI)

Designing for diversity

Design for direct to consumer

Remote collaboration

Impact vs Readiness (large companies vs small companies)

Large and small companies

Huge

Results

DOS

Responses from different size companies were broadly similar, with the following exceptions: IMPACT

- Delivering on sustainability commitments is having a far higher impact on large companies than small

DRO RC

DWD

- Bigger companies feel more ready for Remote collaboration and Design and research ops 1,000+ people

Conclusion: Although larger companies feel more ready, they only feel moderately equipped to deal with many of these changes

1-1,000 people

None

- Designing with data is more important for bigger companies, but they feel more ready for it

READINESS

No capability

Industry leading

DCA

DRO

DOS

SF

DWD

HMI

D4D

D2C

RC

Design as a change agent

Design and research ops

Delivering on sustainability commitments

Systematic foresight

Designing with data

Human machine interlace (AI)

Designing for diversity

Design for direct to consumer

Remote collaboration

Impact vs Readiness (Design Leaders vs Designers)

Design Leaders and Designers

Huge

Results

SF

Design Leaders are feeling the impact of all these issues more acutely than designers, particularly:

- Designing with data

DWD IMPACT

- Designing for diversity

RC

D4D

- Remote collaboration - Systematic foresight

Conclusion: Design team members need more education around the importance of these issues

Designers

None

But with the exception of Systematic foresight, Design Leaders are feeling more ready for these issues too (could this be confirmation bias?)

Design Leaders

READINESS

No capability

Industry leading

DCA

DRO

DOS

SF

DWD

HMI

D4D

D2C

RC

Design as a change agent

Design and research ops

Delivering on sustainability commitments

Systematic foresight

Designing with data

Human machine interlace (AI)

Designing for diversity

Design for direct to consumer

Remote collaboration

The future of Industrial Design

Get in touch Product strategy consultancy www.plan.london

Our story

We’ve helped many design teams prepare for the challenges outlined in this brief report

We help companies to navigate the early stages of product and service innovation.

To learn more about help with a live project, or raising the capability of your team, please drop us a line at hello@plan.london

Please follow us on LinkedIn and subscribe to our content for further insights.

Based in Clerkenwell, London and founded in 2004, we are a team of researchers, strategists and design consultants who cut through complexity to offer clear, frank and friendly advice.

We help our clients with Strategic foresight

Opportunity discovery

Proposition development

Experience strategy

Capability building

We join the dots hello@plan.london