Abstract
The so-called "information era" is accelerated by advances in digital technology. This paper, as the first step in the research on the status of industrial design in the digital era, is to examine design characteristics for digital product.The results are as follows. (1) Together with the "terminalization" of digital product, the emphasis in the value of design has shifted from the object itself to the content. (2) Digital technology has brought about changes of the design concepts, which are not mere extensions of existing concepts. (3) The change of the meaning of product influences the user's perception of the value of the product. (4) The human-product relationship has changed, as influenced by the shift from physical operation to the operation through infomation. (5) Increasingly, there are cases in which it is no longer adequate to carry out design that focuses mainly on mechanical products. From these results, it is necessary to carry out methodological research to establish a synthetic process and an approach that based on human and social science.
