ABSTRACT
The statement that product designs which satisfy users’ requirements are the result of customer-oriented management is a truism. It is a specific version of the tautology which expresses the whole philosophy of marketing-orientation to the effect that corporate success depends upon customers’ acceptance of business activities and offerings. The questions which arise naturally from this are: how far is such customer-orientation the result of conscious managerial effort directed towards the end of satisfying buyers’ needs at a profit and how far does it rely upon customers’ being willing to accept whatever is offered? The problem is perhaps more acutely experienced in the design of new products than elsewhere: to what extent must pre-design customer research be taken into direct consideration during the design and development stages and is it possible for good designers to interpret market wants ‘intuitively’ or at least without direct reference to current market intelligence reports and data? Products whose design processes represent polar extremes appear to flourish equally: the dresses worn by brides at prestigious ‘society’ weddings provide the designs which are copied for the mass market while customer-made industrial components reflect in detail the wants of their buyers as determined at a pre-design stage of the development sequence. Designer-created fashion items undoubtedly appeal to particular types of consumer whose other-directedness leads them to place far greater emphasis upon being à la mode than upon the origin of the ideas they wear; conversely, the functional imperatives of many industrial products require customer/user involvement at pre-purchase stages of product development and, as has been noted, may result in the design stage being preempted by users as the locus of innovation shifts. The differential risks and commercial uncertainties presented by these extremes are reflected in the varying patterns of trial and error in the failure rates encountered in these product-markets. Intuitively-informed designers are, moreover, usually those whose success reflects years of experience of new product creation gained by contact with customers and through close understanding of their detailed requirements and responses. Nor does the simplistic picture of the ‘design dilemma’ portray accurately the relationship between design and marketing-orientation. Intuition results in failure as well as success while customer-initiated innovation may lead to the production of innovations whose markets are limited.
