Research on Obstacles for Open Design to Be Adapted by the Masses

Abstract

Open design is a web-based digital manufacturing method for mass customization. It allows people to customize the products which designed by other designers, and send them to local factory to manufacture which can reduce the transportation pollution. Nowadays open design is emerging in China in the expert design field, but not popular, not even known by the masses. In order to understand what obstacles users face during using an Open Design platform, and how to promote Open Design, we invite 5 designers and 5 people from other occupations to simulate the open design product customize in an Open Design platform (http://www.downloadopendesign.com) founded by Enrique in Guangdong University of Technology. The stimulation is divided to different level tasks (from easy to hard) to understand the different reactions during the customization between two groups. After the stimulation, all people are interviewed for further knowledge about the different understanding of Open Design between designers and the others. Based on the experiment and interviews, we create a new prototype which not only includes open products but also more instructions and assistant services, and 5 more people were invited to test it and compare their reactions with the previous one. This research results can help designers to develop and promote a better adapted platform for the masses to use, and help designers to know that Open Design is not only a digital platform can serve designers but also can be a service for the masses to contribute their talents to their lives and the society.