, pp.125-129 http://dx.doi.org/10.14257/astl.2017.143.26 Measure of Design Thinking-based Regional Innovation: Focusing on Gamcheon Culture Village Na-Rang Kim 1, Soon-Goo Hong 1*, Sang-Jin Lee 2 1 Dong-A University, Gudukro 225, Seo-Gu, Busan, 602 706, South Korea 2 KAMCO, BIFC, 40, Munhyeongeumyung-ro, Nam-gu, Busan, 608-828, South Korea whitecoral@hanmail.net, shong@dau.ac.kr, acroman@daum.net Abstract. Design thinking is one of the next-generational problem-solving methods that have been utilized as part of business innovation in global information and communication technology (ICT) corporations, such as SAP or Google. It has been widely used in various corporations and by different societies. The present study applied design thinking to solve a problem faced by residents in urban regeneration regions. The study s result showed that residents in urban regeneration regions experience fundamental problems of inconvenience. Furthermore, the present study created an opportunity to understand the residents through the process of sharing the difficulties they experienced and by defining problems and searching for a solution as diverse stakeholders, in contrast to existing problem-solving processes. Moreover, the most important success factor for urban regeneration projects was for stakeholders, including residents, to share common goals and create value. The present study applied design thinking to various stakeholders related to urban regeneration projects academically for the first time; moreover, from a practical standpoint, the study s result can be utilized as problem-solving guidelines and policy reference data by policy development-related institutions during policy development for urban regeneration projects. Keywords: SAP, Design thinking, Gamcheon Culture Village, INNOVATION, Regional innovation 1 Introduction Gamcheon Culture Village has been renowned for being an example of urban regeneration in Korea, but it has failed to increase the quality of life for residents (Yoon, 2015). A survey was conducted with 200 residents who have lived in Gamcheon Culture Village for more than one year and 200 tourists from other towns. The survey result showed that 64.5% of the residents were not proud of Gamcheon Culture Village. The survey also showed that 51.5% of the residents felt the financial value of the village has not been improved. In particular, 66% of the residents said the promotion of the village did not improve employment opportunities; they indicated that housing satisfaction has been degraded and residents have not felt enthusiastic about community activities since the urban regeneration project centered on tourism, * Corresponding author ISSN: 2287-1233 ASTL Copyright 2017 SERSC
including murals. This was due to the urban regeneration policy that focused on the satisfaction of stakeholders rather than residents; thus, the policy needs to be revised in order to ensure that the urban regeneration project continues to succeed. Design thinking concentrates on understanding the essence of problems from human-oriented viewpoints based on the participation of various stakeholders, in contrast to existing problem-solving methods. When using a design thinking approach, problems that occur during the establishment and application of existing urban regeneration models can be solved effectively. Much attention has been paid to design thinking as one of the next-generational problem-solving methods, so global information and communication technology (ICT) corporations, such as SAP and Google, have utilized it as part of their business innovation. Therefore, design thinking has been utilized in various areas to solve enterprise and social problems by employing analytical thinking and intuition (Yang, 2015). Accordingly, the present study aims to identify the problems felt by residents in urban regeneration regions using the empathy process through design thinking, and it proposes a solution to the problems. 2 Design Thinking Design thinking refers to a process that derives a solution through repetition of thinking by finding a method in accordance with a given context and by employing divergent thinking as a way of finding an alternative based on observation and empathy. IDEO, which is known to be a typical innovative corporation in design thinking, defined design thinking as a discipline that uses the designer s sensibility and methods to match people s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity (Brown, 2008); moreover, this approach attempts to solve realistic problems based on a way of thinking adopted by designers in the past. In particular, design thinking is important in products and services innovation because it can be applied to not only external design but also the entire process of developing, planning, and marketing products and services. The design thinking process, as defined by the Stanford D School, consists of the following components: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. First, empathy is obtained through observing customers or users sharing a bond of sympathy, thereby identifying a real problem. Ideas about solutions are divergent, as much as possible, and they are developed using brainstorming techniques; once carefully defined problems are identified based on empathy, then an optimum idea is converged from the divergent ideas thereby fabricating a prototype, which is a visualization process (Park et al., 2016). Finally, a test is conducted on the fabricated prototype with various stakeholders, and feedback is given iteratively. 126 Copyright 2017 SERSC
3 Application of Design Thinking to Urban Regeneration Cases 3.1 Gamcheon Culture Village Gamcheon region, which during the late 20th century consisted of an old downtown section, had become a slum as people left the city and the number of empty houses increased due to new town development and industrialization. In the 21st century, urban regeneration projects have become a role model through the Sanbok Road Renaissance project, which departs from reckless urban reconstruction projects, as a result of the harmonization of existing facilities and environments. However, as the number of tourists exceeded 1 million per year, residents in the town started to express dissatisfaction. That is, the environments for the tourist attractions and residences were mixed so that the residents could not be guaranteed any privacy as tourists would take a photo of them without their permission. The town was always noisy, and traffic situations became worse without any clear economic benefits to the residents. Accordingly, design thinking was applied to derive ideas to solve the difficulties felt by the residents of Gamcheon Culture Village. To do this, the design thinking facilitator team searched for various types of people, who were obtained through an analysis of stakeholders, and a workshop was held that was co-sponsored by the Residents' Council. 3.2. Empathize and Define The observation and interview results were summarized using the design thinking technique, and the problems of each group were defined. The first group identified privacy infringement as a problem due to the mixed environment of tourist attractions and residences, inconvenient car parking, increased traffic, noise, environmental issues, residents welfare, the establishment of a relationship with neighboring towns, and the cultural needs related to the unique characteristics of Gamcheon Cultural Village. The group chose the mixed environment of tourist attractions and residences as the most critical problem, and it determined that urgent action was required to improve the awareness of tourists that Gamcheon Cultural Village is a private place to visit, rather than a public tourist attraction. The second group raised an issue about the lack of financial support, the low tourism income, and the low residence income, along with the various inconveniences felt by the residents due to the influx of so many tourists. Accordingly, it was also determined that Gamcheon Culture Village was in need of urgently developing a tour program whose profit could be returned to the village s residents. 3.3 Ideate, Prototype, and Test The first group redefined the problem of the coexistence between tourist attractions and residences by posing the following question: How can we encourage tourists and residents to be considerate of each other in Gamcheon Culture Village? The group Copyright 2017 SERSC 127
then suggested a solution to the problem by creating a special theme alley where residences and tourist attractions could be distinguished naturally. The second group raised a question about how to develop tourism content that could create profit for residents, and that group then proposed the idea of making products and food that could only be produced in Gamcheon Culture Village. The other proposals included utilization of a tourism bus that could generate profits, creating a puzzle using the alley, installing escalators, receiving donations for village development, and transforming empty houses into accommodations for tourists. Next, a prototype was manufactured to visualize the various methods needed to obtain opinions about the ideas that were generated. The first group added the marking of a special theme section in the village map brochure where residents and tourists could co-exist so as to increase the awareness of the tourists. The test result showed that the idea of increasing awareness that the Gamcheon Culture Village is not only a tourist attraction but also a residential area was proposed. Accordingly, applicable areas, name changes, and advertisement strategies were proposed. The second group demonstrated prototypes of products utilizing the unique characteristics of Gamcheon Culture Village through a variety of goods. The test result showed that the idea about making products that use water in Gamcheon was one possible improvement. 4 Conclusion Design thinking was applied to identify the major problems faced by the residents of Gamcheon Culture Village. As such, the following three problems were derived. First, the most fundamental problem in Gamcheon Culture Village was that the village residences were not located in areas that were separate from the tourist attractions. Consequently, with the increase in the number of tourists, the inconvenience felt by the residents also increased. Thus, it was necessary to change policies and increase the tourists awareness about the co-existence of the village residences and tourist attractions. Second, residential infrastructures for the residents were insufficient so that the goal of this urban regeneration project should promote the village through improvements in the residential environments for the residents rather than promotion of the village through tourism. Third, although a large number of tourists visited Gamcheon Culture Village, tourism did not improve the income of the residents significantly. Thus, improving the income of the residents is one of the most important goals for the ongoing success model of urban regeneration. Design thinking is a method that is used to solve a problem from human-oriented viewpoints through the participation of diverse stakeholders who are impacted by the problem. Thus, the present study identified the fundamental problems of inconvenience felt by residents in urban regeneration regions. Furthermore, the present study created an opportunity to understand the residents through the process of sharing the difficulties they felt, by defining the problems they faced, and by searching for a solution that would meet the needs of diverse stakeholders, such as residents, tourists, and related parties, in contrast to existing problem-solving processes. Moreover, the most important success factor for urban regeneration projects is for stakeholders, including residents, to share common goals and create value. 128 Copyright 2017 SERSC
The present study made several contributions to the field of design thinking. It applied design thinking to various stakeholders related to urban regeneration projects academically for the first time; from a practical standpoint, the study s result can be utilized as problem-solving guidelines that policy development-related institutions can use to develop policies for urban regeneration projects; in this sense, the case of Gamcheon Culture Village can be utilized as policy data. One limitation of the present study is that, due to its short time period, it was not possible to obtain feedback from the residents or have them evaluate the study s results. Acknowledgement. This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF- 2015S1A3A2046781). References 1. Brown, T.: Design Thinking, Harvard Business Review, June (2008) 2. Park, S. H, OH, S. H, Park, J. S, Lee, M. K.: A Unified Model of Action Learning and Design Thinking for Social Innovation, Venture Entrepreneurship Research, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp.89-100 (2016) 3. Yang, S. G.: Design Thinking : Case Studies and Implementation Method, Theses Master, KAIST (2015) 4. Yoon, J. Y.: Study on Urban Regeneration Village Branding Strategies: Focused on Gamchen Culture Village, Busan Development Institute (2015) Copyright 2017 SERSC 129