The role of design in society

It was an inspiring discussion among leading academic experts in this area, which, alongside the enjoyable review of the articles featured in this issue, has allowed me to rethink the role of design in society.Design plays an important role in shaping our societies, defining or influencing how we interact with tangible matters, such as products, services, and environments, and intangible matters including emotions, identity, culture, and social norms.It advocates human-centred approaches, catalyses innovation and economic growth, promotes sustainability and fosters behaviour and social value.By harnessing design, society may creatively tackle complicated challenges, improve the quality of life for both individuals and communities and encourage an inclusive, diversified, sustainable and prosperous future for all.The nine articles included in this issue, 27.3, have reflected the significant role of design as it performs in society.They discuss how design may promote and land its role from theoretical and practical perspectives, ranging from exploring the transcendent nature of products, applying user-centred approaches, leveraging design-driven innovation, and investigating resistance in design to the impact of design on society.Opening this issue is the paper 'The sacred and profane in design: Exploring the transcendent nature of ordinary products', where G€ unes and G€ org€ un embark on an exploratory journey, focusing on how specific products have transcended their utilitarian purposes.Drawing from marketing literature they investigate how ordinary products acquire heightened significance in the eyes of consumers, becoming secularly sacralised.Whilst also exploring design literature to form a deeper understanding of the mechanisms which transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.Concluding that designers should approach secular sacredness to reflect products' intrinsic essence and values rather than employing it as a manipulative tool, highlighting how designers can foster deeper emotional connections between users and products by incorporating sacredness into the design process.The following paper concentrates on crafting a novel design method known as the user-centred collective system design approach.This approach aims to enhance stakeholder involvement in the design process of product-service systems (PSS).Specifically, the article titled 'A user-centred collective system design approach for Smart