By: Design Studies Institute Staff
Value is an important concept in design economics, but what makes a design product valuable? While value can be understood as the benefit someone receives from consuming a product or service, it is at the end of the day subjective to the consumer experiencing it. Rather than being something embedded in an object or in the labour of production, value is created through the relation between a design and its customer.
The concept of value is at the center of the newest episode of the Design Studies Institute’s podcast series, Dialogues. In this episode, DSI Dean Jonathan Williams speaks with Lecturer David Chávez Salazar about how designers can understand and facilitate value in their process. Drawing on his own experiences, Salazar discusses the changing ways designers and firms think about value, describing this shift as a revolutionary change because now the economics of production increasingly revolve around understanding the identity and needs of the customer.
During the conversation, Salazar explores his own approach to design and economics, focusing on the designer’s ability to facilitate value through their work. Salazar breaks his model down into four stages: imagination, value facilitation, value capture, and the expansion of value. Together, these stages offer a way for thinking about how value can be identified, facilitated, and sustained throughout the design process.
Listen to the full conversation below.
