Cross Cultural and Cross Disciplinary design: Why it matters?

Have you ever heard of products being hyped up while they're being marketed and when they finally launch, they fail faster than you ever thought possible? Or they are roped into multiple controversies, until the public have a negative view of them, and the millions that went into it's making seems wasted. That is exactly why cross cultural design plays a major role in a designer's life.

Simply put, in it's most basic sense, it involves taking into account the cultural rarities and differences of the cultures and places you are planning to launch your product in, or the culture of the places it is supposed to be inspired from. One major legend, told oft in the automotive design industry is the story of the failure of the Chevrolet car, Nova, in Latin America. Nova in Spanish, translates to "No go", because of which it is said that the car never took off in the market. Despite the legend not being true( Chevrolet actually did make decent sales), it is easy to see why such a mistake might be a callous oversight.

Cross Disciplinary design, on the other hand, is the study of the merger of two or more disciplines in order to create products suited for the betterment of mankind. Let's have an overview of the medical textile industry, for example. A few years back, medicine and textiles were as different from each other as chalk from cheese. However, nowadays knits have been as much a part of medicine as medicine itself. Recently, new innovations have taken place where knitted textiles have been used as medical stents, because they are made of loops, which stretch out when the heart pumps. Braided structures have shown to have still better performance as compared to knitted structures. Knitted structures made of poly lactic acid are being used in urinary tract diseases as they are porous, drapeable and have good mechanical properties. These are called 3D scaffolds. Large diameter structures are being used as vascular impants and as replacement for damaged blood vessels.

The knitted textiles industry has boomed and taken a better road in recent years. However, still more advancements are necessary in order to fully use the potential of textiles in medicine.

Pic credit: https://www.cortlandbiomedical.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/heart-valve-fabric-product-shot-2-1024x748.png