Impactful industrial design is about more than just the physical product and its function; it’s also about making conscious design choices that endear products to different societies. Each potential market has its own cultural and social identity, expectations, and preferences, which product designs must satisfy to succeed in the market.
By considering the social and cultural factors that affect how people interact with products, designers can connect more deeply with their target audience and create better products.
Understanding Cultural Factors in Industrial Design
Industrial designers who consider an audience’s culture are more likely to design products that engage and appeal to consumers. Cultural factors include an audience’s beliefs, preferences, lifestyles, and values, which determine how they perceive and use products.
Culture also plays an important role in prioritization for industrial designers. If the target market cares more about a product’s lifespan than its appearance, it’s better to invest in high-quality and durable materials than shiny or eye-catching designs and patterns.
Here are a few cultural considerations for designers.
Aesthetics
How a product looks can affect how users feel about it. Colors, shapes, and patterns can all evoke specific emotions depending on how a culture views those features. For example, our work on the Vantage Panoramic X-ray machine prioritized a warm color palette, soft edges and curves, and open-air design to help users feel comfortable at the dentist’s office.
Function
Different cultures can use the same types of products differently or solve the same problem in different ways. For example, bidets are extremely common in Asia but less common in America. Various regions also place the steering wheel on different sides of cars, which directly affects whether or not a society can use a brand of vehicle. Finally, differences in cooking styles and dishes served can determine whether a population will purchase specific kitchen appliances.
Materials
In some cultures and demographics, consumers may prefer specific types of materials for their aesthetics, functionality, or accessibility. Silks, gold, and marble convey luxury in Middle Eastern design. At the same time, Scandinavian cultures often prefer natural woods and other simple materials due to their ties to nature and the materials’ accessibility in their location.
Longevity
In some cultures, people look for long-lasting, reliable products to invest in instead of the latest style or trend. Traditionally, German consumers and products focus on high-quality and precise build quality that’s built to last while tech-focused cultures like America or South Korea replace products more quickly as the next generation becomes available. We put this desire for longevity to use in the Yili electric power washer, which features metal parts instead of plastic for durability and ruggedness.
The Role of Social Factors in Industrial Design
While cultural factors primarily relate to preferences, social factors apply more directly to consumers’ practical, everyday needs. They often determine whether someone can use or purchase a product due to physical, financial, technological, or other limitations, so dismissing the importance of social factors in industrial design can greatly limit a product’s success.
Here are some social factors to consider.
User Demographics
Industrial designers should consider factors like the target audience’s age, gender, family status, education level, and other demographic information to ensure that their designs work for them. For example, older users often require larger buttons or text for usability, and family products may need to include features for shared use or multiple users at once, like a toaster with separate heat settings.
Economic Status
The target audience’s financial status often dictates how designers create products. If a product is too expensive for its audience, it will have fewer potential customers. This means products aimed at low-income consumers should prioritize affordability and reliability when choosing materials. At the same time, luxury items for higher-income audiences should have more features, better aesthetics, and high-quality materials to justify their price tag and appeal to consumers who want the best.
Accessibility
Successful industrial design must ensure that as many people as possible can use the product to maximize its customer base. Designing for accessibility can include adding voice controls, ergonomic handles, intuitive controls, and adjustable heights or sizing to account for physical and cognitive limitations. A great example of accessibility is the Juvo adaptive bath chair that features an ergonomic handle around the base to increase the gripping surface,
Living Environments
The areas where users live and their homes also impact how designers should approach industrial design. Urban areas and smaller homes often require multipurpose functionality and compactness, while rural areas require additional durability and have fewer size restrictions to consider.
Why It’s Important to Account for Cultural and Social Factors
Considering cultural and social factors when designing a product can significantly impact its viability in a given market. Each design choice affects the number of potential users and customers a product has, as well as how motivated they are to make a purchase.
Even an innovative and well-designed product can struggle to achieve the success it’s capable of if it fails to satisfy its intended audience’s wants and needs. This is because it’s not only about what the product does – it’s about how the audience uses it and why they choose that specific product over others.
For example, consider the design of an air fryer. Americans often have large kitchens with more counter space because they’re commonly a place where families gather. As a result, Americans would be the ideal target audience for a high-volume air fryer that prioritizes capacity over compactness. However, the same product may not appeal to Europeans or other cultures with traditionally smaller kitchens that have limited counter space to store the air fryer. Instead, a smaller and sleeker model would fit their needs better.
By accounting for these factors that separate different markets, designers can ensure their products align with the intentions and needs of each demographic.
CHOI Design: Delivering Audience-Conscious Industrial Design
No matter the type of product or target audience, accounting for social and cultural factors is essential for successful industrial design. By focusing on usability, consumer appeal, affordability, and accessibility, designers can help create audience-conscious designs that position them for success.
At CHOI Design, we understand the importance of considering all factors that can impact the success of your product. If you’re looking to build a product that’s engaging and perfectly suited to your target audience, get in touch with us today.
FAQs
Cultural factors can affect the color, size, shape, pattern, materials used, and use cases for a product. Each functional and aesthetic choice a designer makes influences how different cultures view the product, impacting its marketability.
Social factors determine who can use products and how they’re used, making it essential that product designs account for different demographics, economic statuses, accessibility, and living environments to ensure the user base is as large as possible.
If products aren’t designed for their intended audience, they can struggle to resonate with consumers and limit who can use them. As a result, it becomes harder to sell them.
Generally, it’s better to customize products for drastically different markets based on their preferences, wants, and needs. Creating a singular product may work for some items like reusable water bottles, but for more complex products like air fryers or appliances, consumers may need additional reasons to choose that specific product and purchase it.
