A Study on Creation of Human-Based Co-Design Service Platform

With the approaching of digital era, various interactive service platforms and systems support human beings’ needs in lives by different contents and measures. Design strategies have gradually turned from function-based to user-oriented, and are often customized. In other words, how designers include users’ value reaction in creation becomes the goal. Creative design service of interior design requires positive interaction and communication to allow users to obtain full design information, recognize the style and process of personal needs, develop creative service design, lower communication time and cost and satisfy users’ sense of achievement. Thus, by constructing a co-design method, based on the communication between interior designers and users, this study recognizes users’ real needs and provides the measure of co-design for designers and users. Keywords—Co-Design, Customized, Design Service, Interactive Genetic Algorithm, Interior Design. I. BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE N 1988, Hasell [9], an American interior designer, gave the following definition for interior design: “To give innovative presentation in the interior space of a building, from the perspectives of society, aesthetics and environment, and based on cultural, physiological, psychological, economical, historical and behavioral preferences of an individual or a group of people, by utilizing natural and manmade elements.” The New Encyclopedia Britannica 1974 defines Interior Design as: “Interior Design is a specialized branch of architectural or environmental designs; it is a problem solving activity featuring innovation.” In other words, Interior Design is an activity that combines elements such as environment, culture, interpersonal interaction and communication, and individual style and taste, thus leading to innovation; it integrates elements such as life, psychology, and sight; it is also a symbol of aesthetics. In the process of traditional interior design, a designer converts to a concrete form the concept generated from the ideas and needs dictated by a user (client), by using his/her professional knowledge and drawing tool. The final product is generated through iterations of communication and modification, which is thus a time consuming process. Although this process can be accelerated with the help of software today, discussions are still required to confirm with the user repeatedly. Besides, in an innovative design service of interior design, innovation must take into consideration user’s needs and the consensus with such needs can be met only when the designer makes suggestions as an expert from the side. On the other hand, interior design requires good interaction and Chiung-Hui Chen is with the Department of Visual Communication Design, Asia University, Taichung 41354, Taiwan (e-mail: [email protected]). communication to allow the user to access sufficient information related to design, thus allowing him/her to understand the style elements of his/her own needs and generating innovative service design jointly. The time and the cost of communication can thus be reduced, and the user may feel the sense of achievement. Therefore, the issue of how to create a platform mechanism for design service which can display the process of communication is worth of investigation, and is an area to be developed and researched. On the other hand, service science is gradually receiving attention due to the development of information technology, vital functions of life, and the trend of service economy in global industry. Special consumer experiences continue to evolve from Internet and new market mechanisms emerge as well. The digital network gives individual great flexibility in decision making, thus affecting life attitude and consumption pattern. In this environment where the needs of an individual are valued, the need for customization in the service industry is receiving attention and changing the supply relationship in traditional industry. With the increase of customized orders, traditional idea of mass production of the same type of product is losing its edge. Instead, the idea of how to satisfy various needs of the customers is on the rise. Flexibility is now the trend in service offer. Integration of network and production mechanism by taking advantage of real time connection with the user and the feature of sharing offered by the network is an important part in production workflow. Networking and digitalization enable an open platform, thus re-establishing the role of the user and the interactive relationship. In other words, digitalization provides an opportunity to contact the user and achieve the best capacity through a platform. The platform is therefore not merely the tool used for one single design work. Because of these reasons, it is necessary to reconsider the relationship between interior design and the digital environment. The user may participate in the design process and create his/her own experience of aesthetics through Internet which serves as a platform for communication between users and designers. Thus, summarizing above-mentioned perspectives, a framework for joint creation of design service is proposed to allow the user to participate in the creation of service and to obtain optimized services through a co-design and thinking process when the service is being provided. The framework and methodology of the human-based co-design service platform (as shown in Fig. 1 Framework of Theory) include discussions in three aspects, namely co-design innovation value, customization of interior service design, and the optimization of interactive genetic algorithm. The user’s design needs are met through the method of co-design Chiung-Hui Chen A Study on Creation of Human-Based Co-Design Service Platform I World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Computer, Electrical, Automation, Control and Information Engineering Vol:7, No:6, 2013 778 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 7(6) 2013 scholar.waset.org/1999.4/8997 In te rn at io na l S ci en ce I nd ex , I nf or m at io n an d C om m un ic at io n E ng in ee ri ng V ol :7 , N o: 6, 2 01 3 w as et .o rg /P ub lic at io n/ 89 97 evolution. The concepts of design-thinking, co-design and evolution are used to allow the user to obtain service solution based on customized design suggestions through interactive genetic algorithm in the process of design. Fig. 1 Theoretical framework of the human-based co-design service platform