The place, importance and characteristics of the subject of product semantics in industrial design education: A research on design departments in Turkey

For a long time since the birth of the industrial design discipline, the functionalist approach that used Louis Henry Sullivan's famous word "form follows function" almost as a slogan has continued its influence as the prevailing understanding in the field. In time, with the change of the dynamics influencing the discipline of industrial design, the definition of design and the role of the designer have changed; the function-oriented period has given way to the user-oriented period. This focus shift also includes studying the issues such as the dimension of meaning in the product-user relationship and the communicative and symbolic functions of the product. Early works on product semantics which essentially studies on the symbolic qualities of the objects in the context of their use dates back to 1960s; but, it took part as a term in the literature at the beginning of the 1980s. Although the paradigm is considered to be older according to some views today, it appears as course subject in the curriculum of industrial design departments in different stages of education in Turkey. These courses are included in the curriculum of some industrial design departments by the names as "Product Semantics", "Culture and Communication in Product Design", "Semantics in Design", "Semiotics in Design", "Design and Culture", "Product Development Philosophy" and "Semantics in Product Design". When we look at the contents of these courses, it is seen that these courses are mostly structured to include some basic knowledge about the basic communication theories and semiotics and the terms such as culture and consumption together with the product semantics. In this study, it is mainly intended to understand the place, importance and characteristics of product semantics as a course subject in the curriculum of the industrial design departments within the context of industrial design education in Turkey, through the examination of the previously mentioned courses. In addition, there are the secondary objectives of the study. One of these objectives is to understand if the subject's validity in education continues and what the recent orientations in this area are. Another objective is to determine the roots of industrial design education in the case of our country and thus to trace, to a certain extent, the relevant steps taken within industrial design education from past to present. Thus, the study aims to make clear, to some extent, where the footsteps in this area started and where they are now; who pioneered this process and how they did so; and what their viewpoints are. At first, the departments of industrial product design at Istanbul Technical University, Marmara University, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and Middle East Technical University have been considered as the sample of the study because they have been pioneered in industrial design education in Turkey and they are still effective today. The second reason why these departments have been considered as the sample of the study is that leading scholars studied/studying on this subject with whom it is planned to interview within the scope of the study are graduated from these universities and some of them worked and are still working as academicians at these departments. In addition to these, it has been decided to include the Department of Industrial Product Design at Gazi University and the Department of Industrial Design at Anadolu University in the research due to the fact that the academic background of the instructors teaching the related courses at these universities is known by the researcher. The industrial product design departments of Marmara University and Anadolu University were not included in the sampling of the study because of the reasons to be detailed in fourth section of the study. Consequently, within the scope of the study, the industrial product design departments of Gazi University, Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Middle East Technical University (METU) and Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University (MSFAU) have been selected as the sample among the industrial design departments in Turkey in accordance with the research objectives which are to examine the related courses in the context of Turkey and to understand their place and importance in the curriculum. The research started with the literature review and continued with the in-depth interviews with the instructors who taught or have been teaching the relevant courses in the departments of industrial design in the sampling universities, the participant observation study based on the "Culture and Communication in Product Design" course at Istanbul Technical University during 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 fall semesters and a survey study conducted in connection with the participant observation study. In the first section of the thesis study consists of five sections, it has been mentioned about the objective and importance of the thesis and given brief information on the structure, scope and method of the thesis. In the second section, it has been intended to make understandable the factors that lead to the product semantics through the changing role of industrial design and designer. In addition, it has been briefly mentioned about the topics such as semiotics, communication and culture which are discussed along with the product semantics in the courses being subject to research. In the third section, the courses including product semantics and related issues in the curriculum of industrial design departments in the world and Turkey have been examined and it has been tried to have a general framework about the subject. Information about the history of the industrial design education in Turkey has been also included in third section. In the fourth section, it has been given information about the method and process of the research. In this section also, the data obtained in consequence of the fieldworks has been analysed and the findings has been submitted. The fifth section is the last part of the study. In this section, the results obtained by making inferences through the findings of the research and the suggestions for further studies have been presented. In-depth interviews that constitute the most important part of the field study were carried out face to face with Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dilek Akbulut, Assoc. Prof. Dr. H. Hümanur Bağlı, Assist. Prof. Dr. Harun Kaygan, Assist. Prof. Dr. Aren Emre Kurtgözü, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şebnem Timur Öğüt and Assist. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Zeki Turan through semi-structured and open-ended questions. The questions asked during the interviews and the findings obtained from the analysis of the collected data by descriptive analysis method constituted 4 headings related to the subject as follows: - Product semantics as the course subject and approaches to subject - Historical process of the subject in Turkey - Importance of the subject in design education - Current situation of the subject and new trends In order to support the research, the participant observation study was carried out within the scope of the "Culture and Communication in Product Design" course instructed by Assoc. Prof. Dr. H. Hümanur Bağlı, at the department of industrial products design at Istanbul Technical University during 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 fall semesters. The researcher participated in the classes by observing the instructor and students, at the same time by taking notes like one of the students and in order to extend the participant observation study, the researcher conducted a survey study with the students who took the course in both semesters. For further studies, it may be possible to obtain a broader view of the subject by expanding the sample of the field studies.