Creating Breakthrough Ideas: The Collaboration of Anthropologists and Designers in the Product Development Industry / Edition 1

by Susan Squires, Bryan Byrne

Overview

Research, design, and development firms are actively recruiting anthropologists and other social scientists, as ethnographic research becomes more central to the creation of appropriate new products, services, and marketing strategies for U.S. and global markets. To be successful designers, professionals must learn new processes, develop training programs, modify communication styles, and share their methods to make their work possible. The current volume is written by social scientists, designers, and entrepreneurs who create new products and services. They provide frank and insightful discussions about the opportunities and challenges facing researchers and designers who are learning to collaborate.

The book highlights several major topics in order to focus on critical aspects of the industry's highly related features. It provides background information about ethnography, decsribes and analyzes the industry, presents case examples of working practices and discusses emerging methodology based on three fundamental kinds of projects (discovery, design, and evaluation). The book suggests ways emerging design professionals can (1) improve their own performance, (2) change the working processes of the industry itself, (3) contribute to basic ethnographic research, and (4) craft training programs for the next generation of professionals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780897896825
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	11/30/2002
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

SUSAN SQUIRES is Executive Director, Customer Insight Research, TACTICS, LLC, Pescadero, California.

BRYAN BYRNE is Co-Founder of Baffin Solutions Inc. in Alameda, California.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Ethnography, Design, and Customer Experience: An Anthropologist's Sense of It All by John F. Sherry Jr.
Introduction: An Introduction to the Growing Partnership Between Research and Design by Susan Squires and Bryan Byrne
Converging Professions
Managing for Breakthroughs: A View from Industrial Design by Charles Leinbach
Behavioral Scientists Enter Design: Seven Critical Histories by William Reese
Creating Collaborative Cultures
Designing Collaborative Corporate Cultures by Bryan Byrne and Ed Sands
Collaborative Work: Integrating the Roles of Ethnographers and Designers by Christina Wasson
Team Roles in the Design Process: Living With and Creating Legacies the Benefit Design by Sally Ann Applin
Emerging Collaborative Processes
Doing the Work: Customer Research in the Product Development and Design Industry by Susan Squires
A Client's Perspective on User-Centered Design by George Walls
Communicating with Clients by Rita Denny
Anthroplogy and Industrial Design: A Voice from the Front Lines by Mark Dawson
Semiotics as Common Ground: Connecting the Cultures of Analysis and Creation by Heiko Sacher
The Future of Design
Conclusion: Towards an Integrative Design Discipline by Ken Friedman
Postscript by Eric Arnould