A contemporary didactics of innovation in product design. Grip Factors identification and evaluation

Abstract

A deep reflection on innovation revealed that the standard approach used to present it to the design students did not properly come from a designer’s point of view: the focus on the search of causes, the definition of effects, the forecast of the future impact of an innovation on the market is a typical analytical approach, mainly appropriate to a scientific discipline (economics and sociology). A phenomenological approach, typical of the research of Design, was helpful to observe the successful characteristics that allowed some products to survive the market and society changes through the years. These features were called Grip Factors: through their definition, analysis and evaluation, the designer acquires the importance of an inclusive, humanistic vision of innovation, which must consider all the complexity of the contemporary scenario: economics, society, technology, anthropology, … in order to filter and summarize different needs in only one product.