This essay will demonstrate that rather than automatically dismissing conspiracy theories as fanciful and irrelevant in product design, the designer should acknowledge them and carefully consider their potential impact on the success of a design solution. Examples of non-mainstream ideas and beliefs that have been incorporated into the design of products will be provided, including where product designers will be aware that these ideas and beliefs exist due to the emergence of a conspiracy theory. It will be shown that conspiracy theories can be successfully incorporated into a design with example from the past and present. Also that as values change and culture shifts in society, including as a result of unproveable yet influential conspiracy theories and beliefs, there exists an opportunity for product manufacturers and service developers such as, in the case of medical professionals who have in the main rejected traditional and emerging homeopathic treatments, to revisit and accommodate these belief systems to ensure that the
y remain relevant and inclusive. It will conclude that the product designer benefits from knowing the target customers well and that in learning about his customers s/he should avoid judgement. In doing so the product designer is then free to set aside his or her prejudices and skepticism and instead approach the design process from the point of view of the users, their expectations in terms of form and function in a more targeted fashion. In this way the designer is able to meet the product/service users desire for a product that is not out of step with his or her principles and value base, thus making it more attractive, relevant, accessible and in the end more successful. Through this paper will demonstrate that greater attention to existing conspiracy theories which may impact on a products level of success should play a bigger consideration in the development of design projects, with a focus on deeper investigative research – a search for the truth and hidden motivations of products and services, whether real or imagined.