Q: How are you changing your approach to design? A: In the past we regarded designers as people merely carrying out the role of designing products. In the future, we believe designers will have to be integrators, combining everything from initial research to the use of products. We must invest more in researching user behavior and discovering what's happening in the market.
The first concrete step is expanding design labs overseas. Their focus will be shifted to uncovering consumer trends, what's hidden beneath the surface, instead of more visible things such as color or materials. Design comes from experience. One of the most important activities of a designer is to figure out how to take that experience and turn it into products that fit a specific market.
Q: How are these foreign labs different from your "usability lab" here in Seoul?
A: The usability lab focuses more on the behavior of users before products are made, while labs in various regions focus on the lifestyle of local people and on making sure products are adapted to local tastes. The Tokyo lab is more geared to finding out trends in materials and finishing technologies in Japan.
Q: Could you tell us recent measures Samsung has taken to improve its design capabilities?
A: Nearly 90% of our sales come from overseas markets. To support our products, we must become a more global organization. Our objective is to develop premium products, what we call mass-prestige products. To make premium products, designers will be allowed to focus on their own strengths. Designers with outstanding creativity will explore and formulate product concepts, those with a lot of experience will work closely with engineers to design them, and finally a group of designers will be engaged in assessing markets and user response to the products. And our research activities will be expanded so that we will have a better sense of trends in various markets.
"Online Extra: Q&A With Samsung Design Boss Chung Kook Hyun," BusinessWeek, 29 Nov 2004. via Tomalak's
