Vision in Product Design

Vision in Product Design (ViP) is a widely applied design method that focuses on possibilities rather than on problem solving. The essence of ViP is to create the raison d'être of a future product by creating a context before designing the product. A main part of the created context consists of a combination of statements on human tendencies (things that people tend to do when given the opportunity), an identification where these tendencies conflict, and an idea how to solve this conflict through a specific intervention of a product. The product would elicit certain behaviour that solves the conflict between the tendencies. For this reason there is a focus on the experience users have when confronted with products. The 'product' of ViP can be anything that results from a creative process, not just on traditional product categories but also on problems of management, architecture, services, etc. The process of ViP starts by selecting a set of factors (ideas, observations, principles, states, developments, beliefs, trends, obsessions) that form a context from which an appropriate product can be designed.

The method was developed at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, in the mid 1990s. The method has been used both at other design schools and also by organizations (including Audi, Pininfarina, Nokia, and Whirlpool).