Eagle Model: A Future Medical Product Innovative Design Model Driven by Human-Technology Symbiosis and Co-design

Abstract

Medical products are complex professional artefacts used in the medical situation, such as disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation, that hierarchically originate from basic medical research, medical process, and service process. With the coming of the ageing society and the experience economy era, both physical and experiential needs of people for medical products are becoming increasingly complicated, diverse, and comprehensive day by day. However, balancing the conflicts among various needs is still a significant challenge. This article explores a future medical product innovative design model driven following the ideology of human-technology symbiosis and co-design, named the Eagle Model (shaped like an eagle), as a potential proposal for this question. This model is constructed based on 50 design outputs in the last 3-year medical product design curriculum for bachelors in D&I, Tongji University, Shanghai, China. We hope this article can inspire other researchers in the medical innovative design area.