Sustainable Development in Local Culture Industries: A Case Study of Taiwan Aboriginal Communities

Taiwan’s indigenous communities have an abundance of unique cultures. Their service industries with local and foreign cultures have opened up distinct opportunities for sustainable development. Despite the enormous potential of aboriginal communities, particular attention should be given to ecology and sustainability. The traditional emphasis on craftsmanship and design is shifting to a new focus on the service industries and experimental design, which is not limited to the design of tangible products. Design concepts are now being applied to service industries that span several fields and are also being used to come up with systematic solutions for real-life problems. However, in the service industry, design experience must be used when introducing design concepts. The problem is how to shift from “High-tech” to “High-touch”, for the aborigines are used to designing products at the usability level. This research proposes a model of experience design for use in aboriginal culture revitalization. Three different cases show how to apply the framework from experience design to local revitalization. Results show that the model can integrate the principles of sustainability into service industries and that it needs to be verified in future studies.