Maintaining positive interplay between brand DNA and customer co-designers in mass customised products.

Bardill works on theory building in Emotional Design, with a current focus on Mass Customisation (MC).
His current work aids understanding of the design of MC product offerings, develops appropriate conceptual models, and seeks to answer questions posed to designers who seek to design for co-design. This work makes a clear connection between the process of mass customisation and the heightened emotional connection that customers might experience throughout the entire co-design and product purchasing process. By using established emotional design methods (principally Jordan's ‘Four Pleasures') Bardill's work has resulted in a new conceptual model for MC product design called the ‘Product Envelope'.
This model is the first complete expression of the design efforts necessary to support a truly coherent, user-centric, MC product offering. An essential aspect of these design efforts is the interplay between brand DNA and customer co-designers in all aspects of the MC product purchasing process. Hence, the conceptual model encompasses both the understood notion of the tangible ‘solution space', but also the less tangible service, interaction and experience touch-points, which support co-design.
This paper reports on the initial theory building undertaken to develop the outline conceptual model. It provides a critique of a range of extant emotional design tools and highlights the potential of the Four Pleasures as a generative tool to develop the model across the required tangibility range.

Conference jointly held by: The Institute of Industrial Policy Studies, The Design Management Institute, The Design and Brand Management Society