Co-Design: From Electronic Substrates to Smart Objects

Everyone is different. It is a fact echoed by the great, shifting diversity of our world today. It is reflected in our use of the everyday tools around us and even in our understanding of the words we use. For Information and Communications Technology (ICT) research, the term ‘co-design’ is often employed to define the shared design process that exists (particularly in embedded systems) between hardware and software. In fact ‘co-design’ relates to any design process; in effect it is a philosophy, one in which the goal is to involve all perspectives that are relevant. The rationale is simple, even though the practice is not: the quality of a design improves if all of the stakeholders’ interests are considered. This chapter discusses co-design as a process, relating it to the concept of Augmented Materials, outlining the challenges relevant at material- and object-level in creating optimal solutions.