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(2011)Conference PaperAbstract: In recent decades, a growing number of those in the industrial design profession have shown concern for socio-ethical issues and pondering the impacts of their work on the planet and its peoples. While mainstream industrial design education and practice still clearly focuses on product-centric innovation, the increasing involvement of designers in activities that advance the betterment of humanity is undeniable. Some university design programs immerse students in developing countries and disadvantaged neighborhoods to learn to co-design appropriate solutions with communities. The professional design industry has also been supportive in engaging and contributing to this new area of social innovation. In line with this emergence of design for society, this paper reports on some of the studio projects at the Industrial Design Program at the University of New South Wales, which highlight design’s agency as a catalyst for social change. The studio briefs are discussed as case studies and the learning experiences gained and the reflections of students are analyzed and used as arguments for the continued and growing inclusion of social responsibility within the industrial design curriculum.
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(2011)Conference PaperThis paper presents the results of an empirical study, investigating the uptake of ecodesign by industrial design consultancies (ID consultancies) in Australia, China, Germany and the USA. Designing products for a low environmental load, usually termed as ecodesign, offers high potential to reduce the environmental impact of our society, aiming for a sustainable development. However, there still appears to be no widespread uptake of ecodesign into product development praxis by industrial designers, with most ecodesign activity focusing on the engineering phase. Especially seldom are the necessary radical interventions to significantly improve the environmental performance of products. The literature review revealed that ID consultancies might be in a position to improve this situation. This paper presents the findings of a website content analysis, investigating the extent of ecodesign uptake by ID consultancies in Australia, China, Germany and the US. Those four countries were chosen to see if different, country specific frameworks impact on the attitude of ID consultancies towards ecodesign. The paper verifies that ID consultancies have a high potential to improve ecodesign uptake by using their influence especially on early phases of the product development process and by addressing also non engineering related issues for ecodesign. This potential does not appear to be fully embraced yet. The paper concludes by identifying the highest representation of ecodesign on websites of Australian ID consultancies and the lowest on websites of Chinese ID consultancies. The way ID consultancies practice ecodesign is very country specific. Understanding the differences and developing recommendations how ID consultancies can better unfold their ecodesign potential requires deeper investigations in the case specific factors.
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(2010)Conference PaperSafety culture has been widely accepted as a crucial aspect in construction organisations. Despite its popularity, there is confusion on the actual meaning of safety culture. Another concept called safety climate has been used interchangeably with safety culture and has fuelled more perplexity. This paper aims to clarify the meaning of both concepts and discuss the differences between the two through a literature review. It is argued that safety climate is part of safety culture, that is, it is the psychological dimension of safety culture. Furthermore, this paper has developed a framework to show the overall concept and contents of construction safety culture, which includes the cause, contents, and consequence of safety culture. Measurements are also proposed for construction organisations to measure their safety culture and improve their safety performance continuously.
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(2011)Conference PaperAlthough it is generally accepted that construction organisations should foster a strong safety culture in order to improve productivity and minimise incidents, little research has been focused on developing instruments to measure the maturity level of safety culture. This paper describes a research study on the development of measurement criteria to assist construction organisations in assessing and understanding their safety culture maturity levels. The components, dimensions, and maturity levels of safety culture were reviewed and measurement criteria for each maturity level in the context of the construction industry were defined. These criteria were aimed at helping construction organisations to determine their safety culture maturity levels, thus giving a starting point to strategise in developing their safety culture. Future research will focus on testing and validating the measurement criteria to determine their practicability.
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(2012)Conference PaperElectronic and electrical products have become indispensable and ubiquitous in many facets of our daily lives. The quantity with which electronic and electrical products are produced, consumed and discarded is growing rapidly. In addition, the lifespans of these products are getting shorter with many products still functioning when disposed of. Consequently, the combined result of shortened product lifespans with growing demand and consumption of electronic and electrical products, in both developed and developing countries is the escalating growth in end-of-life electrical and electronic products. Electronic waste (e-waste) is highly toxic and is the fastest growing waste stream. Unlike many other categories of waste, e-waste has particularly unique qualities. It not only contains many highly toxic substances it also contains valuable materials and precious metals. This study highlights particular aspects of obsolescence and e-waste processing which have implications for the design of electronic and electrical products in our throwaway society. It investigates growing concerns about the flows of e-waste from industrialised countries to the developing world where hazardous recycling takes place by a burgeoning informal sector. Many of whom are marginalized social groups who resort to e-waste recycling for income and survival. Furthermore, this paper outlines the opportunities for efficient and economical resource recovery and how the design of electronic and electrical products can contribute to improve the integrity and value of recyclates and facilitate safe and efficient end-of-life resource recovery.
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(2010)Conference PaperThis paper investigates the engagement (or lack thereof) of manufacturing, engineering and product design industries towards sustainability. This was achieved by completing a content analysis of the award winners in the Australian International Design Awards (AIDA) against an independent set of Design for Sustainability (DfS) criteria estab-lished by the authors. Particular focus was given to the 2010 recipients of the Austra-lian International Design Award™ and the Australian International Design Mark™ and the claims made in their product descriptions and key features and benefits state-ments. The paper reflects on the criteria used by the AIDA to assess the awards, elaborates on the positive elements of sustainable design presented, and suggests di-rections that the industry may utilise in order to strengthen its capacity to achieve sus-tainable outcomes.
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(2010)Conference PaperBy promoting and applying ecologically sustainable design (ecodesign) strategies in the product planning stage, industrial designers can have significant influence on reducing the environmental impacts of products. Despite this potential, there remains little quantitative analysis of the awareness, application and influence of ecodesign praxis amongst industrial designers. This paper presents a comprehensive content analysis of the websites of 96 industrial design (ID) consultancies in Australia, probing for evidences of ecodesign application in each company‟s capability statement and project portfolios. Our study found that that less than half of consultancies visibly promote their ecodesign activities on websites.
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(2010)Conference PaperThe output of industrial design education and practice has always been product-centric. In this study Asian, Australian and Latin American students were challenged with a different approach to design briefs: not to design objects per se as an automatic re-sponse to satisfaction of wants, but to consider sustainable product-service systems (PSS). It was intriguing to see how students from different countries responded to the same briefs with proposals which are strongly tied to their cultural traditions.
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(2014)Conference PaperA lasting legacy of all Olympic and Commonwealth games is their athletes villages. This paper discusses the potential for home modifications to support the process of ageing well that builds on this housing legacy and as such points to the benefits to be gained from both wider uptake of universal design in housing plus attention to special adaptations as needed. In the context of Australia’s ageing population, ageing well can encompass a number of different housing and care models, however common to all of these is a drive to maintain quality of life levels. There is evidence to suggest that home modifications impact recipients in a number of overlapping ways, by increasing independence within the home, increasing social participation and enabling people to remain in their own homes for longer as they age. This paper refers to completed stage one findings (Levels 1, 2 and 3) of an ongoing research project investigating the value of home modifications. It uses a mixed method approach and thematic analysis of survey responses from home modification recipients (n=157). This research design enables the measurement of the impact of home modifications to housing and resulting changes to care giving needs. The survey results reveal a decrease in reported care hours needed following home modifications, a trend which is further supported by the thematic analysis. In conclusion, the research contributes to developing evidence that home modifications can have a measurable impact on the care needs of recipients and support the changing social needs of ageing populations in ageing well.
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(2010)Conference PaperAs initiators of product creation, industrial designers are expected to facilitate the communication of the products’ physical and non-physical attributes to users in a self-explanatory way. In other words, the products that they create should “afford” conversation with their intended users using the visual semantics and symbolic language of the design. “Cultural affordance” refers to the perceived possibilities for interacting with a particular object or environment in the physical world, which could be directly or indirectly influenced by the cultures of both the users and the designers. The influential norms within one’s social group and day-to-day lifestyle can be significant determinants of how an individual would comprehend and use a designed object. Our own mental models, formed through years of living within a society, also shape our expectations of how to engage with a product. Thus if we want products to afford usability and to facilitate a pleasurable involvement, then designers should design with an inclusive understanding of the user’s culture, experiences and knowledge. This paper concludes with a proposal for a full-semester subject, suggested to inculcate among young industrial designers the sensitivity to the close links between design and culture.