Participatory Design in the Design of Domestic Cookware

Product design aims specifically to determining and setting specifications of products that control the relation between all parts of the product to each other. Products should necessarily satisfy a wide range of needs and requirements in a state of effective interactive balance between desires of the consumers, the limitations of his capabilities, the product economics and manufacturing technology constraints. The product is normally designed also for performing a specific function or a group of functions effectively and most efficiently. It is also required to to be durable, safe and easy to handle or use. This is all added to an acceptable level of cost.
The product design process is an innovative one that is carried out through a systematic or organized team work. The product designer determine these concepts and evaluate ideas and thoughts and they convert them into physical tangible products. The mission of the product designer that is not as apparent is integrating art, science, and technology to innovate new products that may be useful for others.
These roles of a product designer is supported with numerous digital tools that enable the designer to communicate his ideas, work and assessment with other parties in the design process. However, an extremely handy tool is rarly used by designers in Egypt the proper way. This is the user/consumer himself. And this is what  the methodology called participatory design is all about. This methodology integrates the user or groups of users in the design process, not only as a source ffor information but also in all stages of the dsign process, utilizing their skills, knowledge and their point of view. The participatory design is a tested methodology that proved useful in a wide range of product design.
Here comes the question of the present study; can participatory design achieve the same level of success when used in a special purpose products, such as cookware or the like of products that are used by users with a minimal or none experience or knowledge of the design process. The design of cookware is one of the fields in which more than one user uses them sequentially and interchangeably and in a wide variety of situation. Here, arises another question how can the participatory design involve all those  consumers and satisfy their needs and wants?
The main objective of the current study has been to engage users of domestic in the design process for achieving more convenient products and more much more reliability, comfort and safety comprising realistic ergonomics considerations   in the design process.