In 1999, US design firm IDEO accep-ted a challenge from the ABC news program Nightline: in only four business days, it would completely redesign the familiar supermarket shopping cart.

The multidisciplinary design team leapt into action on the first day: A market research expert visited a supermarket to observe how shoppers and cashiers used the carts, and to listen to their complaints and suggestions. Meanwhile, materials experts and structural designers gathered carts from various manufacturers to take them apart and study their differences. By the end of day one, the team had identified three objectives--to make the carts more child-friendly, safer, and more efficient.

On day two, they tacked more than 100 ideas up on a wall. After these had been enthusiastically debated and voted upon, the team began making sketches.

On day three, experienced welders assembled the futuristic new frame and the team began working on the smaller parts.

On day four, IDEO's founder had a sudden inspiration--they would replace the large basket of the standard cart with several smaller ones.

Their new cart emerged on the morning of the fifth day. The sleek new design featured a child-friendly seat with a safety clasp and a play surface; a scanner attachment (allowing shoppers to avoid checkout lines by scanning their purchases as they shop); and upper and lower racks holding up to five small baskets, to increase shopper flexibility while making the cart less attractive to thieves.

IDEO's boldly innovative designs are created using a methodology that draws on process management, teamwork, and an understanding of consumers' needs. Its objectives are to make life easier for consumers and promote the advancement of industry. Both the concept and the method are now deeply ingrained in Taiwan's business community.

For this month's cover story, "Taiwanese Design Takes Flight," Deputy Editor-in-Chief Teng Sue-feng visited dozens of local firms, from tech-industry giants to traditional SMEs. The stack of design specifications and prototypes she collected in the process reveal both the unbridled potential of Taiwanese design and the challenges it still faces.

In the end, there remains something mysterious at the heart of good, consumer-oriented design. And we need to remind ourselves of that occasionally.

As socioloist Zygmunt Bauman has written in his Work, Consumerism and the New Poor, modern society has transformed from a "society of producers" to a "society of consumers." Advances in manufacturing technology and finance mean that society needs fewer people to produce goods and fewer to save. The primary function of people today is to consume. Their "contribution" to society is largely determined by how much they spend.

"Design" has become the tool by which people are enticed to consume. Nations emphasize beauty, societies stress style, and individuals focus on connoisseurship. Postmodern BoBo fashion, low-key luxury, hyperexpensive simplicity, the "sustainable" lifestyle that ironically requires the purchase of all-new goods... one fashion fad follows another, sharing one common thread--they all target consumers' pocketbooks. Entranced by each new design that hits the market, consumers must be careful not to let their desire for material gratification lead them around by the nose.

In contrast to the strongly "bourgeois" flavor of our cover story, this month's other main feature concerns people living courageously. It includes the moving stories of "Wheelchair Poultry King" Chen Chuan-hung and the late Lin Shu-yi, a little girl who had to beg her mother not to end both their lives on account of her handicap.

Sadly, some are shattered by life's blows. Others stand tall in the face of innumerable challenges. But we don't know whether these are inborn traits or learned reactions. After talking to the experts, we've been unable to put together an explanation that all could agree on. With suicides on the rise, we hope more scholars will begin investigating what makes people resilient, and come up with a means to ensure that our society is happy and strong of character, as well as being materially well off.