Design service industry is a key industry which facilitates the boom of industrial design education. In this study, 159 universities with the departments of industrial design are investigated. Department of industrial design in 24 universities are selected as the research samples for the analyses of basic data, course category, and radar chart. The research results show three major underlying apprehensions for department of industrial design courses. (1) The establishment of industrial design courses over-stress on the north than the south. (2) The industrial design courses over-emphasize practical skills and professional knowledge, but lack of humanities ethics and international macro. (3) The industrial design course segmentation between comprehensive universities and universities of science and technology is not obvious that the characteristics of such two types of universities become ambiguous. It is expected that the research results could be the primary reference for government planning industrial design education.

Dr. Rain Chen ist außerordentlicher Professor an der Universität Süd-Taiwan (STU), Taiwan. Zwischen 1998 und 2000 war er Patentprüfer beim Amt für geistiges Eigentum von Taiwan (TIPO). Er ist Patentanwalt. Seine Forschungsinteressen umfassen Design-Patente, Design-Strategie und Design-Management.