Tasarım süreçlerinde trend çalışmalarının rolü: Türkiye örneği

This thesis aims to define the awareness of product designers in Turkey about trends researches, and where trends research methods can be placed in the product development process. However, it is important to note that this research is not intended to be prescriptive for any creative area. Although this research can give some ideas to use practically, more researches, resources and time are needed to make it than the researcher had. The literature research of this thesis is done without any narrowing down by the design discipline, because first of all, it is aimed to understand the trends studies truly. Misunderstanding of trends studies are caused by mostly the fashion field, therefore the scope of the sources was extended through fashion. The main reason of that is understood that fashion industry have adopted the trends for so many years, and recently, because of the developing production techniques fashion lifecycle was shortened, therefore they need future forecasts more than ever. The main cognitive terms were examined by means of the relation between different trends research methods. The ones that have ambiguities between each other were selected on purpose. Trend forecasting methods in the source of trend disciplines were selected and summarized by means of the job experience of the researcher of this thesis in trend research field. And finally the diffusion of trend on the society was discussed within two different models suggested by pioneer trend forecasters. After focusing on trend discipline and learning all its main aspects, the recent design conjuncture was researched in the 3rd Chapter of this research. The overlapping areas between trends studies and design processes were defined and the notions were explained. The books and articles which mention about the latest product design processes were examined by using content analysis method due to if they contain 'trend' or 'forecast' words. In the 4, 5 and 6th chapters of this thesis were telling about the qualitative research phrase in detail. One-to-one semi-structured interview method is selected as a qualitative method, because it allows for a flexible approach to the investigation. Owing to researcher's experience on this field, interviews could be adopted due to the knowledge of the interviewees about trends studies. This thesis focuses on product designers in Turkey, so participants were selected due to their product design experiences and their industries. The interview questionnaire was prepared under 4 titles. And these titles were used for clustering the results. In total, 14 findings were reached according to inteview results. Addition to that, 2 more results were found based on the answers. As a result of literature review on trends researches and study on the recent design processes, it is understand that there are similar parts between product design and trends studies. Especially future oriented approach and meaning are the main similarities between them. Both of them is the suggested as new dimensions in Design Driven Innovation study. With these two reviews, the path to innovation through design become more close to trends studies, because trends researches create big sources for the future forecasts and the story behind them. The reason of this is also the developing technology and valued innovative idea. And also, due to the same reason, being multi-dimensional is the key factor for differentiating the product, brand or service for both two disciplines. An approach through designing process has 'Soft Processes' which remind the 'Soft Skills' in trend forecasting methods. The similarity through these two approaches is the need for the hard skills (processes) besides the soft skills (processes). Qualitative approach is always a questioning method in the business, also designing is the same because of being connected with the intuition and knowledge of the designer. They both need numbers to persuade the managers about their innovative ideas. In addition to similarities, there is also a bidirectional relation between trends and design in the context of ideation stage. While trend studies have strong inspirational outputs, product development process has a strong realization power. Quite the opposite, while trend studies need implementation potential, product development process needs more inspirational inputs. They complete each other. As a contribution to literature, all the trends research and forecasting methods are collected under a one title as 'Trends Studies', because there were confusions about both the meanings and the applications. The existing mostly used term, 'Trends Research' should not be a head title, because this discipline includes not only researches but also forecasting and implementing methods. This title is used in the name of this thesis. Another contribution of this study is to practice. Using Pinterest, 'Pinning' as a tool for product design development is contributed to this discipline as a new method. With the focused study of this thesis' researcher, it is understood that Pinning will encourage both designers and non-designers starting to work with more visual tools like mood boards. The final contribution to practice of trends researches and design process is adding another W to the 5W Questions (Who, What, Where, When, Why) method: 'Wishes'. With this addition, it is aimed that while planning scenarios or even thinking about an innovation project, 'future' can be considered more effectively. As further researches, making a quantitative research among the designers in Turkey to increase the number of sample would be a good approach to reach wide-range attitudes. Deep interviews with foreign trend analysts who work with large companies in Turkey would give information about the differences of considering by designers and managers in foreign countries and in Turkey.