Quality in design: Policy, implementation, management

To assure and improve quality in design, most of the time researchers and designers like to put emphasis on a particular level, area, or aspect. However, this kind of emphasis is easily biased. While consideration of the quality in design is not from a wider and all round perspective, the result would easily become, as a Chinese saying suggests, While focusing on taking care of the head, suffering will be from the foot. To overcome this limitation, several exploratory studies on quality in design related to public facilities have been conducted by a design research team of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University since the late 1990s. To have more in-depth studies to generate insight for further exploration and discussion, the case study approach has been adopted in the studies. Borrowing the findings and experience of the case studies on the designs of public facilities, this paper identifies some existing biased perceptions and practices in design. The paper then proposes some directions to put users as the hub/center in design considerations. The paper further argues a balanced perspective in the consideration on the quality in design on three different levels: policy, implementation, and management, and discusses how these three levels of consideration are closely correlated to each other.