With the development of internet, communication and manufacturing technique, a person's social position rises and each can express one s wants more freely than before. Propensity of consumption has also changed. Thus, defining a target user and adapting a design to this target's needs a process that was included in the early design development are becoming more and more difficult. Based on those changing environments mentioned above, a new personalization design is studied in this paper to develop a design that can more effectively adapt to a continuously changing user in his using process.
In this study, the following propositions are considered. ① Personalization is the new approaching method of the whole industry for a user's individual needs. This personalization contains 'customization', 'individualization', 'group characterization' and 'differentiation' of product and service in itself. ② The subject of design is products. ③ Personalization in design process is a product adaption process to a user's individual needs. ④ Using process can be explained as an interaction between a user's needs and product functions. ⑤ A product is a systematic combination of various functional factors. ⑥ A product s functions can be divided into practical function, aesthetic function and symbolic function according to a user's three basic needs. ⑦ Personalization in designing process is to make theses functional factors of a product the most suitable to a individual user. ⑧ Because a user is a continuously varying creature, a personalization design, ignoring(closing) functional elements of a product encounters limits at the end. ⑨ An 'open design'-an open system that designs a product with flexible functional criteria- is required for personalization in Using process to succeed. ⑩ In order to have an open design, personalization unit is needed to a user to personalize functional elements of a product at one s will, and this is defined as 'design unit'. A design unit can be defined by determining practical functions, gestalt functions, and user interface functions, included in it.
A new tool that can visualize and personalize in the internet with those design units , as well as a new desktop PC, designed with the open system have been developed to verify the capability of the new personalization design method. In conclusion, these experimental personalization design test showed the new possibility to adapt to the user's needs, acting like a real design guideline.
