2.   Secondary Products

One way of understanding the idea that design itself designs both in terms of and beyond its designated function (see Relational Design), is to think of these aspects as 'secondary products' that bear material implications. What we now need to do is use the information we gathered in the previous exercise for some future planning. What will your design in turn, design? This is how we start to discover impacts and what we need to find out about them. We can then use this information to reflect upon on our design plans.

Exercises:

 
1 Create three headings across the page: Materials; Meanings; Uses.
2 Using your proxy product, list under 'Materials' as many of the material relations this product depends upon as you can. Leaving aside for the moment what the product itself is made out of and the impacts associated with that, here we are concentrating on the use-phase of your product's life and the reference material flows it entails. What resources will your product itself need in order to operate (energy sources, water, cleaning products, labour) and at what rate over time; what other associated products will it need (for example notice-boards need pins or magnets; pens need paper, refills, pen holders, pencil cases, liquid paper etc.)?
3 The category of 'Meanings' is a little less straight forward. Meanings depend on the relationship between a product and its users: it refers to the perceptions your product will generate and depends upon over its life.
•   How do you think the designer of your proxy product would have answered the following questions?
•   What will your product be valued for?
•   What kinds of feelings do you want it to create in its users?
•   What do you want to be remembered about your product?
•   How do you want the relationship between your product and its user/s to evolve?
•   Now how would you answer them about your product?
As a starting point, go back to Step 1 where you listed impressions about what you want your product to communicate and why. In Stage 7 we will take the idea of designing meanings further, into the category of product styling.
4 The category of 'Uses' in this stage refers to the practical relations your product will create over its useful life. Who will use your product and how/why will they use it? Imagine a specific user, perhaps your 'ideal' user and describe them in as much detail as possible. As you discovered in Step 1, product users intervene in the intended design of products and create their own uses, which can radically alter the impacts of the product. You are now in a position to double guess some of the unintended interventions of users and increase the usability of your product, which has materials circumvention or 'Dematerialisation' potential. Looking carefully at your proxy product, Are there any uses that you think its designer failed to account for and what tells you this? What secondary uses do you think your product might invite?