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HOW PRODUCT DESIGNS EVOLVE

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 * 📘How Product Designs Evolve
 * 📊Visual Summary
 * 🔬Research Data
 * 🦓1. Introduction
 * 📚2. Literature Review
    * 2.1 Overview
    * 2.2 Design Evolution in Literature
    * 2.3 Darwin, Evolution & Natural Selection
    * 2.4 Disruptive Selection
    * 2.5 Directional Selection
    * 2.6 Stabilising Selection
    * 2.7 Purifying Selection
    * 2.8 Disruptive Innovation

 * 👨‍🔬3. Methodology
    * 3.1 Overview
    * 3.2 Research Procedures
    * 3.3 Research Population & Census
    * 3.4 Methodology Selection
    * 3.5 Grounded Theory
    * 3.6 Data Collection
    * 3.7 Data Analysis

 * ✈️4. Results: The Evolution of Commercial Aircraft
    * 4.1 Disruptive Innovation in Aircraft
    * 4.2 Directional Innovation in Aircraft
    * 4.3 Stabilising Innovation in Aircraft
    * 4.4 Purifying Innovation in Aircraft

 * 📱5. Results: The Evolution of Smartphones
    * 5.1 Disruptive Innovation in Smartphones
    * 5.2 Directional Innovation in Smartphones
    * 5.3 Stabilising Innovation in Smartphones
    * 5.4 Purifying Innovation in Smartphones

 * 🚀6. Disruptive Innovation
    * 6.1 In Search of a Better Theory
    * 6.2 Issues with Disruption Theory
    * 6.3 The Rise of The iPhone
    * 6.4 The Emergence of a Smartphone Dominant Design
    * 6.5 Market Disruptions in The Smartphone Industry
    * 6.6 The Jet Age Disruption?
    * 6.7 Disruptive Innovation by William Abernathy
    * 6.8 Christensen’s Prediction for Boeing and Airbus
    * 6.9 The Predictive Model of Disruptive Innovation
    * 6.10 The Rise of Boeing
    * 6.11 The Rise of Airbus
    * 6.12 How to Design Disruption

 * 🦒7. Directional Innovation
    * 7.1 Natural Selection in Technological Evolution
    * 7.2 Directional Selection in Nature
    * 7.3 Incremental, Directional, and Disruptive Innovations
    * 7.4 The Importance of Directional Innovations
    * 7.5 From Disruptive to Directional Innovation
    * 7.6 Historical Trend in Aircraft Fuel Efficiency
    * 7.7 Directional Innovation in Commercial Aircraft
    * 7.8 Directional Innovation in Smartphones

 * 🐊8. Stabilising Innovation
    * 8.1 The Stability of Designs
    * 8.2 Technological Stasis & The Pro-Disruption Bias
    * 8.3 Punctuated Equilibrium & Dominant Designs
    * 8.4 The Stabilisation of Qualitative and Quantitative Traits

 * 🐋9. Purifying Innovation
    * 9.1 Purifying Selection in The Evolution of Industries
    * 9.2 Apple’s Purifying Innovation Strategy
    * 9.3 Conceptualising Purifying Innovation
    * 9.4 Purifying Innovation and Technological Replacements
    * 9.5 Purifying Innovation and Technological Discontinuances
    * 9.6 Purifying Innovation and Technological Rejections
    * 9.7 The Economics of Purifying Innovation

 * 🌊10. The Dynamics of Design Evolution
 * ⚡11. Conclusion
 * 📖References

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📘HOW PRODUCT DESIGNS EVOLVE

"How Product Designs Evolve" is a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the
requirements of the University of Northumbria at Newcastle for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

HOW PRODUCT DESIGNS EVOLVE

Marcos Antonio de Lima Filho, PhD.

oi@marcs.phd

RESEARCH UNDERTAKEN IN THE FACULTY OF ARTS, DESIGN, AND SOCIAL SCIENCES @
NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY NEWCASTLE

July 2023



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ABSTRACT

How do designs evolve? What can evolutionary theory teach us about the
development of products, services, systems, and other artefacts? Inspired by
grounded theory, this study compared the design evolution of two distinct
industries: smartphones and commercial aviation. The first census attempted to
cover the product sheets of all mobile handsets introduced between 2000 and
2020. This group includes feature phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs),
and smartphones. It covers the specifications of 13,212 mobile handset models
introduced by 297 brands worldwide. The second census covers the historical
production of passenger aircraft built for commercial airline service. Between
1932 and 2020, 54 manufacturers from 19 countries produced a total of 54,793
airframes. A comparison with evolutionary theory suggested a possible parallel
with natural selection mechanisms. By analogy, I propose four distinct types of
innovation: disruptive, directional, stabilising, and purifying innovation.
Together, these patterns form a dynamic model of design evolution. Like the
evolution of species, the industries studied here have gone through cycles of
relative stability punctuated by short periods of radical transformation, such
as the Jet Age and the rise of smartphones. These transformations, however,
contradict some foundational premises of the current paradigm of disruptive
innovation. Grounded in new data and based on the research tradition pioneered
by William Abernathy and James Utterback, this thesis calls for a revision of
Clayton Christensen’s disruption theory. By reinstating the concept of dominant
design into its core, the theory of disruptive innovation can be reconnected
with its history and the evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium. With
these changes, I believe disruption might achieve greater theoretical parsimony,
generality, and resolve anomalies that the current disruption paradigm cannot
explain.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I dedicate this doctoral thesis to my mother, Maria do Socorro Marques de Melo
(1963-2021). Mom, it breaks my heart that you are not here to celebrate the
completion of this project. God provided me with the fortitude and it gives me
comfort to know that you are in a wonderful place.

Also, I’d like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Stuart English, for
persisting with me even when I was close to give up. Last but not least, I want
to thank my family, friends, and my beloved Caio.

This work was supported by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e
Tecnológico (CNPq). Grant number: 202448/2014-2.

Ad majorem Dei gloriam.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DECLARATION

I declare that the work contained in this thesis has not been submitted for any
other award and that it is all my own work. I also confirm that this work fully
acknowledges opinions, ideas and contributions from the work of others.

Any ethical clearance for the research presented in this thesis has been
approved. Approval has been sought and granted by the Faculty Ethics Committee
on 22nd February 2016.

I declare that the word count of this thesis is 84,851 words.



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