Diseño reflexivo de problemas, Monografía Monografía de grado ESUMER | Page 119

106
The objects we design are intended to be used by a user. The object’s action and
the way the user uses the object condition the user’s behavior, so the design
process must consider the changes the designed object will produce on the user.
Some products are based on this statement, the designer does not design the
object itself but the user’s behavior, and the object is only a way to produce the
expected effect, the designer is designing the user. Although this is true always
the designer is designing not only the actor, but also the user, in most cases the
designer is not aware of that. Here the essential point is the responsibility the
designer has in the induced change on the behavior of an individual or a group.
The concept of life cycle, an ontogenic point of view.
The concept of product life cycle appears in a different way depending of the
looking it is given. In marketing, such concept considers the product before its
launching into the market –Introduction, growing, maturity, declining–.
From a
perspective of design, this concept has an ontogenic sense. It considers all the
cycle of development of the product from its conception as an idea to its death, –
when it is retired from the environment– and its postmortem processes, which
consist in second uses, recycle, etc.
Is this vision of the life cycle what gives sense to the design methodics. It is to see
in a time–axis all stages of the development of the product, and in a process–axis
the activities, persons and methods that affect in one way or another the
development of the product. It justifies the necessity of an effective strategy of
design management.
Product characterization and imageries creation
Design from a functional perspective is a way to find a corporeal form, which must
be responsible of the function and of a series of characteristics well defined by
each one of the interveners in the process. Intervener could be anyone, from the
person who makes the charge, designs, packs, sells, to whom is the user, the