Research introduction
What is system design research?
System design research is a multi-disciplinary research of two major elements.
The two major elements are "system" and "design".
◇ System
All things and things in the world can be understood as a system. And the system can be roughly divided into two. One is a "system with functions/purposes" and the other is a "system without functions/purposes".
In nature, there are various systems that do not have many functions and purposes. These are systems we cannot design. The system that we can design is a system that has functions and purposes. We have designed and created a system with many functions and purposes under the influence of a system (natural phenomenon) that does not have functions and purposes. Today, these systems are intricately related to form larger systems.
In future system research, it is necessary to understand and recognize the complicated and enormous systems, and then investigate the lower-level systems to be researched. It is also necessary to pursue large higher-level systems from lower-level system research. In other words, it is necessary to take both approaches: seeing trees from the forest and seeing the trees from the trees.
◇ Design
When you look up the meaning of "design" in English, it is used in various ways such as "designing", "design", "intend", "plan", "design for clothes”, etc.. From these, it can be said that the word “design/design” has two types of designs, one for realizing a certain function by technology and the other for appealing to human sensibilities. In other words, the word "design" has two meanings. And I will call them "functional design" and "kansei design".
When the general public hears the word "design", they will think of designs such as clothes design and graphic design. This is probably because the designer thinks that the design that appeals to people's sensibilities is the “design” of design, decoration, and form. On the other hand, when a person who designs machines and the like hears the word "design", they think of designing equipment with new functions and designing high-quality machines.
In this way, "design" can be divided into "function design" and "kansei design".
From the above-mentioned concept of "system" and "design", system design research refers to "function design and kansei design based on understanding and recognizing the upper system and the related system including the system to be studied."
In this laboratory, during system design research, we are conducting research on function design and kansei design of services or product + service systems.
Function design and Kansei design of service system
The customer value provided by the service system is the total value of usage value and experience value. Experience value includes perceptual value, contextual value, and kansei value.
Usage value is the value due to the function of the service product, and perceptual value / contextual value is the value that the customer feels in the process of providing the function, and these are the values that the customer consciously and logically evaluates.
Kansei value is the value of the customer's sensibility and is valued by the unconscious and intuitive value. And with a high sentimental value, customers tend not to care about the cost (price) paid. In this way, the customer value provided by the service system consists of the value that the customer consciously and logically evaluates and the value that the customer unconsciously and intuitively evaluates. The former is "functional value" , the latter is "kansei value" that provided by the service system.
In this way, when designing a service system, "function design" that provides usage value, perceptual value, and context value and "kansei design" that provides emotional value are required.
In our laboratory, we have been conducting research on function design of many service systems so far, and we are currently working on it, but research on kansei design of service system is not progressing so much. In function design, customer segmentation/targeting, process, etc. are designed by embodying the modified expressions in the functional expression to be designed. You need something that appeals directly. For example, when people say "elegant and friendly," they list things that are considered "elegant" in function design, think about what "gentle" should be, and combine them to create a system design. However, there are customers who do not feel that the system created by function design is "elegant and gentle." It is the "Kansei design" of the service system to design a system that lets people who do not feel that it is "elegant and gentle" feels what kind of kansei value.
The total value of "function design" and "kansei design" becomes the value of the customer and provides the customer with satisfaction. In our laboratory, we are conducting system design research that provides the total value of "function design" and "kansei design".