A UNIFIED APPROACH FOR SYSTEMATIC AND PARTICIPATORY DESIGN

Engineering design has taken an important role in creating the industrial society. The systematic design approach which consists of the design methods and methodologies based on systematic models and processes is commonly applied in various design fields and industries. Meanwhile, participatory design is another common design approach to explore the requirements of a product and its users' activities by participating in a user field based on the social science background. These two approaches have different disciplines and used to be separately studied, though they have a complementary relationship. To harmonize these two design approaches, it is necessary to understand their concepts, features and challenges, and to clarify the requisites to unify them. In this paper, the authors introduce the systematic design methodologies and the participatory design approach based on the theoretical survey and explain their features and challenges. Then the authors suggest a possible way to unify both design approaches, propose a concept of integrated design approach named "User-driven Product/Activity Design (UPAD)" approach and discuss its effectiveness and uniqueness.