doi: 10.18178/ijimt.2025.16.2.974
A Preliminary Study on Integrating Sustainable Product Design Elements into the Skill Development and Curriculum Planning of Industrial Design Students
2. College of Design, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan
Email: chentl@ntut.edu.tw (T.-L.C.); houcy40203@gmail.com (C.-Y.H.); raynezhu@gmail.com (R.Z.)
*Corresponding author
Manuscript received November 23, 2024; accepted April 1, 2025; published June 10, 2025
Abstract—Designers play a crucial role in the sustainable development of products. Future designers must possess the ability to address sustainability trends; therefore, sustainable product design content should be integrated into design education curricula to equip design students with the necessary knowledge. To construct learning content for sustainable product design, this study first applied grounded theory to analyze 50 journal articles published in SCIE, SCI, and AHCI, summarizing key elements of sustainable product design. Six major dimensions were proposed: ‘Functional Design’, ‘Material Utilization’, ‘Resource Utilization’, ‘Energy Utilization’, ‘Life Cycle Management’, and ‘Value Management’. Subsequently, the competencies and courses required for industrial design students were introduced and discussed. The analysis revealed that the cultivation of each dimension is linked to the development of ‘Product Development Planning Skills’, ‘Human Factors Knowledge Skills’, ‘Aesthetic Design Skills’, ‘Engineering Application Skills’, and ‘Market Insight Skills’. These competencies can be taught through courses such as ‘Marketing Planning’, ‘Materials Manufacturing’, ‘Deep Thinking’, and ‘Design Practice’. It is hoped that the findings of this study can serve as a reference for sustainable product design education curriculum planning and the formulation of educational goals, contributing to efforts toward sustainable development.
Keywords—sustainable product design, industrial design education, design education competencies, design education curriculum
Cite: Tien-Li Chen, Chun-Yueh Hou, and Rui Zhu, "A Preliminary Study on Integrating Sustainable Product Design Elements into the Skill Development and Curriculum Planning of Industrial Design Students," International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 29-35, 2025.
Copyright © 2025 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).