Let me do my job - Industrial Designer's Experiences of Client Collaboration

In the reported study, we explore the relationship of industrial designers and their clients in the co-design process from the designer’s perspective. We look into the conceptual design phases, in which the most critical decisions concerning the product are made. Our primary interest was in how designers perceive decision making as a part of the design process. In our empirical work, we performed artifact-based interviews with seven practicing, professional designers based in Finland. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to analyze the transcribed interviews in order to reveal the central themes in designers’ perception towards design decisions. The analysis surfaced four themes: the backdrop of the industrial design process, the fundamentals of designer identity, and the defense reactions and coping in response to identity threats. We found that while designers perceive the client relationship essential, it often seemed more destructive than constructive for their creative process. Overall, our study suggests, that by improving the communication and collaboration in the client-designer relationship, the innovativeness of industrial design commissions could be improved