Product Design for Entrepreneurship

Hong Kong Polytechnic University via edX

Overview

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This course introduces the concept of a designer working for themselves and creating their own design-driven brand. It requires learners to apply ideas to a real-life setting. By the end of this course, learners will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the elements of design strategy and branding, experience design, lifestyle design and professional communication, including online communication. Learners achieve this by identifying an area for innovation and product-service development.

The course aims to nurture designers’ business thinking and develop their social responsibility and vision in the new economic paradigm, as well as motivate them to become pioneers and prime movers of social and cultural businesses. Learners will engage in tackling real-world issues using design-led approaches and methods.

This course is the first of its kind to integrate the knowledge of product design with entrepreneurship. Not only is it unique, but it also occupies a market niche. Since entrepreneurship is a hot topic worldwide, the proposed course has the potential to attract large numbers of global learners with basic knowledge and hands-on skills in the product design process, quality management and management of related resources.

Syllabus

Week 1: Introduction (Sylvia)

Why is product design important to entrepreneurship? Design, business & management, and technology are well accepted as core knowledge for all the start-up teams. However, in practice, business & management and technology are applied as hardcore in a start-up business, and design is only employed at the final stage to prepare for launching the product. In most cases, it is advertisement design, packaging design and multimedia design applied.

Week 2: Journey map (Scott)

This module will introduce the tools and process of gathering customer insights for identifying and developing new product opportunities. Through this hands-on, workshop-type exercise, the participant will discover and learn how to use customer journey mapping to understand and optimize customer behaviors, mindsets, and emotional motivations across interactions with the product or services.

Week 3: Stakeholder analysis (Sylvia)

In this mode, the basic concepts of stakeholder will be introduced. Based on it, the process of searching, defining and analyzing stakeholders will be taught as a basic guideline. Finally, the value flow model is introduced to define the types of value and relationship between the stakeholders. As the result, the value proposition of new business could be confirmed based on identified value gaps and opportunities.

Week 4: Design process (Yi-Teng)

The meaning of value and the process of value creation is swiftly changing from a company-centric perspective to a personalized consumer experience. This is a very complex and unpredictable form of the consumer market. It is not easy to predict market trends as usual. For the factory, what is their strategy to solve this problem? How do they face complicated consumer patterns and a more competitive market environment? Therefore, this course will introduce designer-led approaches to bring a unique experience for consumers.

Week 5: Financial Management for product design (Kevin)

When designing and preparing to deliver a product to market, it is essential to understand finance principles. There are many finance principles; some apply to product design, and some do not. We will focus on the Five Principles of Finance that are generally applicable. When you design and deliver a product, the goal is to sell it for more than it costs to produce. If you sell something for less than the cost to make, you will not have a profit to show.

The five:

Cash Flow Time
Value of Money
Risk and Return
Market Price
Conflicts of Interest

Week 6: Intellectual Property (Kevin)

As a designer, you create intellectual property any time you make something new and original. IP exists in various forms, including inventions, product logos, books, photographs, new designs or artistic creations. IP is a precious asset, and different types of IP protect different kinds of outcomes.

The four types of IP designers use most often are:

Patents
Design rights
Trademarks
Copyright

Topics covered:

Consider IP early. Understand the relationship between copyright and design rights. Identify who owns the IP. If your product has a short lifespan, alternative strategies do not include registering your IP. Learn how different IP rights can work together to protect your work. Plan in advance what steps you will take if you find someone copying your design or using it without your permission. When you register your IP, it will be published online. IP rights do not give you protection outside of single countries. Design rights and patents need to be a secret until you apply.