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