Design Consilience

A Folksonomy for Product Design

My paper on the applicability of folksonomy in a product design scenario is available here: Folksonomy and Designing: An Exploration.
In it, I discuss how product design is a social process involving negotiation and reconciliation of conflicting design objectives and why folksonomy is an effective design representation and retrieval tool that evolves with the design as it emerges through the negotiations and discussions of the design team.

Understanding The Designer Shoe

 

The Puma Slancio modular shoe is marketed as an essential travel item for the modern man on the go (Speedbird). The proposition is that you only have to pack one pair of shoes but get to use it in three different configurations: hotel/ inflight slipper (1), street shoe (2), pool sandal (3). The two main parts (slipper and sandal) combinatorially achieve three different functions.
The Balencigia is just a cool design that seems to be inspired by the modular blocks of LEGO. Different colors could indicate the decomposition of the shoe into functional parts.
Balenciaga shoe image credits: thecoolhunter

Product Design Search Engine using Google Coop

Google Coop is a neat way to build a custom search engine, and that is exactly what I am setting out to do; Build a custom search engine specific to product design. What is particularly cool is that it is possible for up to 100 members to be contributors, allowing for these members to add URLs to a list that will be included in the search whenever a query is submitted.
Since product design is a vast domain, the search engine is limited to everything that commonly fits in a building. This essentially excludes design related to architecture though occasional exceptions have been made. Though I have not excluded any thing related to user interface and web design, I have not made any particular effort to include it either.
Included is everything related to technology, gadgets, innovation, design methodology, design firms, people aka designers, design in academia. This list will be modified with time.

The script for the Google gadget isn't working; the direct link to the search engine is here Doodle: Product Design Search

Currently at just 89 websites, I am planning on adding more. If you wish to be a contributor, please drop me an email.
Some resources pointers and resources that are available in case you are planning to build your own search engine:

• It is possible to speed up the process by uploading an OPML file. Currently I have just been using Google Marker for the purpose, which builds up the list of sites one at a time when  visit it.
  
• Open source code to upload del.icio.us links with a specific tags can be found at Zooie's blog
• Useful information is available on the Google Custom Search Blog.