Professional Reflections
#mdxpd Prof. Pat Jordan Staff on the Product Design/Engineering Programmes are active professional practitioners and researchers. Here, Pat Jordan, Professor of Design Psychology at Middlesex University, author of Designing Pleasurable Products, and consultant - advising on design, marketing and brand strategy, shares a concise profile, his background and selected works design and understanding users. I wrote a paper about it and submitted it to an international conference. The organisers liked the Four Pleasures so much that they asked me to give the keynote speech. Several of the attendees then recommended me to give the Four Pleasures as a keynote at other conferences, and it grew from there. People invited me to talk about it at events in over 50 countries. Good design starts with understanding people - their practical needs and their emotions, aspirations, hopes, fears, and dreams. That applies whether you are designing a product, service, or policy. I am a psychologist and have spent most of my career helping people design things.
step-by-step help throughout the design process.
Eventually, I left Philips. I had had seven great years there but wanted to start my own I also do a lot of government business. At another work, particularly in the UK, conference, someone from where I work on the design and implementation of policy. Starbucks heard me talk about the Four Pleasures and Mostly this is for central asked me to consult for them government. My role using it. That was very is mostly about giving insights successful, and I ended up and requirements, which are getting lots of well-known then put into practice by clients. The UK government others. However, I do some I have clients from different then asked if I would consult local government work, industries – automotive, on policy for them. which, as with smaller transport, consumer commercial companies, electronics, mobile devices, To really understand people, requires the detailed financial, hospitality, we need to explore them fast-moving consumer goods, implementation of policies. deeply and holistically. All too hospitality, and healthcare. often, those providing Early in my career, I came They are mostly big products and services have a across a book by corporates, which tends to view of their users that is anthropologist Lionel Tiger. In mean that my role is to give superficial, narrow, or simply them insights about their users' the book, Tiger describes his wrong. As a result, they fail to model called the Four needs and the requirements understand the full context in Pleasures, which looks at the of a design. They will then which people use a product different kinds of positive take this and apply it using or service, and it fails to their in-house expertise. This is experiences a person can deliver the hoped-for benefits. have. I was working at Philips a very different way of That’s why the Four Pleasures at the time and thought that working than with smaller companies who tend to need we could apply this model to is such a valuable tool.
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PRODUCT DESIGN Middlesex University School of Science and Technology
