The Design Journal

The Design Journal by Speck Design is a platform to initiate design-minded thinking and conversation through journals, blogs, insights, and news releases.

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Series

Cultural Influences On Product Design, Part 2

7 Min Read Time

In part two of our cultural influences on product design series, we explore the impact of power distance on product preferences within cultures.

Vector image of people standing by product design studio speck design

Cultural Influences on Product & Industrial Design, Part 1

9 Min Read Time

In part one of this series we explore the intricate dance of cultural nuances in physical product design and discover how Hofstede's dimensions can guide, but not dictate, our understanding of global design sensibilities.

Designing Across Borders: How Culture Shapes Product Aesthetics

Health 4.0 Has Caught Up With Industry 4.0 (And Needs UX Design) Part 3

7 Min Read Time

How UCD shapes Healthcare 4.0, bridging digital-physical gaps, meeting regulatory standards, and driving future innovations.

Graphic representation of user-centered design methodology being used to enhance healthcare systems and services, highlighting the synergistic relationship between patients, healthcare providers, technology, and regulatory standards.

Health 4.0 Has Caught Up with Industry 4.0 (and Needs UX Design) Part 2

5 Min Read Time

Industry 4.0 innovations are seeing a rise in application in healthcare. They are experiencing a surge of integration into healthcare in response to COVID created. Today they are part of most users' lives–whether they realize it or not and are the de-facto future of medicine, meaning so is UX design.

Research and product development for medical devices

Health 4.0 Has Caught Up with Industry 4.0 (and Needs UX Design) Part 1

5 Min Read Time

The Pandemic significantly expedited the integration of Industry 4.0 technologies into Health 4.0. It saved lives but revealed a troubling truth that industry professionals have known for a long time: Healthcare is lagging in UX Design.

medical device design company article

Design Thinking as the Evolution of Storytelling: Part One

5 Min Read Time

The ability to tell stories has given our species the evolutionary advantages responsible for our proliferation to 8 billion people worldwide. Could design thinking be an evolved form of our narrative abilities that we are cultivating just in time to save us from ourselves?

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Adapting User Experience to Heal a Generation of Broken People: Part Two

In good times and bad, the things we use every day shape our lives and, increasingly, our well-being. This is why, post-Covid, it has become clear--a product designer's mind belongs to crisis. It is an opportunity for us to rethink why things work the way they do and why, at the drop of a hat, they don't. In turn, this reminds us the products we design are ephemeral, but the experiences we design are not.

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Adapting User Experience to Heal a Generation of Broken People: Part One

5 Min Read Time

The user experience has changed because the users have changed. The truth of the pandemic is--none of us got out of this unscathed, untouched, unmoved, or unaffected. It is our job, as product designers, to start designing for that reality.

User Experience Research Company Product Design

Post-Pandemic: A World Where Sustainable Behaviors Normalize

4 Min Read Time

Though disruptive and tragic, there was a major silver lining in the pandemic--the rise of the eco-consumer. This new cohort is bringing sustainability into the mainstream and is willing to spend more on environmentally ethical products that last.

The pandemic and sustainable product design

Post Pandemic: The Age of AI Accleration P2

5 Min Read Time

There can be little dispute that artificial intelligence is an utterly transformative technology. One that is exercising its power in our lives daily by changing our relationships with machines and with one another and ourselves. It will soon be as ubiquitous in society as the internet, and its impact is slated to be as unshakeable as it is profound.

AI Opportunities in Product Design

ID Her: Women of Industrial Design — Dani Nguyen

4 Min Read Time

In our new series, ID Her: Women of Industrial Design, we will be profiling women of industrial design past and present because we believe visibility is a great way to light the path for women coming up in the industry and those considering a career in it. Where better to begin than with Speck's own--Dani Nguyen?

Female industrial designer product design company

Has Higher Education Failed the Female Industrial Designer?

It appears men and women start out in pursuit of an industrial design degree about evenly, but only 19% of industrial designers are women. So, in four short years, what could possibly be happening to nearly half the female industrial design students to make them simply disappear?

product development company

White Space: Black Designers Needed Part 3

8 Min Read Time

In Speck Design's third blog of our White Space: Black Designers Needed series, we look at the compelling reasons design industries (especially product and industrial) need to install more black designers in their ranks. Not surprisingly, it's not just for the warm and fuzzy feeling they get from doing the right thing. It's because diversity pays in dividends.

product design agency

White Space: Black Designers Needed Part 2

5 Min Read Time

To find the root causes of MIA black designers, you just have to follow the money. From underfunded public schools--desegregated in name only--to privileged cultural institutions raking in the lion's share of arts donations, the systems are broken for some and working wonders for those who designed them.

product design company

White Space: Black Designers Needed Part 1

4 Min Read Time

It is no secret the design industry desperately needs more black people. In part one of our three-part blog series, Speck Design explores the disproportionately small number of African Americans in the various design verticals and the implications for human-centered design firms that fall short in representation.

products design company

Post-Pandemic: A World Where Home and Health Will Continue to Intersect

6 Min Read Time

COVID-19 caused a massive acceleration in telehealth adoption in 2020 and 2021. Even after the pandemic recedes, a full return to "traditional" in-person care seems unlikely. This shift in medical consumer behavior not only carves out a niche for innovators but for HCD designers ready to make once-in-a-generation changes in empathy-based patient care.

product design firm

Post-Pandemic: What Kind of World Will We Be Designing For?

4 Min Read Time

Change is hard, especially unsolicited change. But, like it or not, this relentless pandemic has already yielded "strange fruit": resilience for all--innovation for those in the design industry. Our Speck Design blog series will explore this unique time to be a product designer--chalked full of challenges but also bulging with opportunities for human-centered designs.

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Part 3: We Aren't Quite Dead Yet: Harnessing The Law of Unintended Consequences for Sustainable Technology

4 Min Read Time

In the final blog of our Sustainable Technology series, we focus on the importance of environmental empathy and what designers are actually preserving by developing it. Plus, we look at embracing constraints as a way forward towards more innovative, sustainable design outputs and hope for the future.

sustainable medical device design company

Part 2: We Aren't Quite Dead Yet: Harnessing The Law of Unintended Consequences for Sustainable Technology

7 Min Read Time

In Part II of our Sustainable Technology blog series, we take a closer look at systems interconnectivity being both the driver of negative consequences from product and technology innovations and a way for designers to shift their thinking to avoid them.

sustainable industrial design

Part 1: We Aren’t Quite Dead Yet: Harnessing The Law of Unintended Consequences for Sustainable Product Design

7 Min Read Time

Product and technology innovation is a notoriously double-edged sword, often creating as many negative consequences as it does benefits. In our three-part blog series, we will explore how designers can use The Law of Unintended Consequences and The Gaia Theory as jumping-off points for Systems Thinking as a way to stave off possible perverse environmental consequences from the products they design.

sustainable top product design company

Making It Real: Steps to Designing a Great Product

20 Min Read Time

Crafting Successful Product Journeys: From Concept to Reality. Join Denise Pilsken as she guides you through the stages of realizing a product vision, highlighting the pivotal steps in bringing your idea to life and into the market.

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