Exploring Product Ecosystems

Product Ecosystems

To get a better understanding of product ecosystems, the below article was used to understand how products are connected;

Future Product Ecosystems: discovering the value of connections by our very own Industrial Design Lectures at QUT Tim Williams and Marianella Chamorro-Kocb.

The link: 

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55ca3eafe4b05bb65abd54ff/t/5747499960b5e9634c0cdf34/1464289694043/295+Williams.pdf

Key notes that were taken from the article;

• Product Ecosystem Theory is an emerging approach to understand value networks for products
• As an industrial designer, the trend of an interconnected ecosystem is benefical to the overall design, it adds value. 
• "For example a television of the 1960s required a power supply, transmission of programs and not much else. A modern television in contrast, may sit within an ecosystem of DVD players, pay TV, streamed content, free to air content, remote controls, surround sound systems, internet connectivity and so on."

• “Internet of Things” has allowed products to interconnect in many differnt ways, i.e with wireless connection. When designing the entire system must be considered. 
• "Many products that were stand-alone are now reliant on other products as well as the environment in which they exist" e.g. the ipad

• "The term “Product Ecosystem” is most often used to talk about products that are connected electronically. For example the “Apple ecosystem” is a term used to describe a suite of products"

• In the article, it shows a couple figures to explain a simplified product ecosystem. The diagram for a DVD player is a example of this;
• "The solid lines represent critical value transfer and the dashed lines represent components that add value but are not critical. The arrows show the direction of value flow. That is, the arrow points to the receiver of value. For example the TV is a critically important to the DVD player. "

• Through the diagram it shows how the product ecosystem is conected and how each product is valued against one another, hence the critical value etc.
• There is a push towards interaction and ecosystems from the traditional areas, though still important, ergonomics, aesthetics and form.
• Interactions are constantly evolving from simple switches to gestures and touch etc.
• "There are different types of ecosystems that will require different approaches"