Designing for Humans

Affordances in Product Design

One of the ongoing "philosophical" points of contention when I was in graduate school was between the cognitive psychologists and the ecological psychologists over the theory of perception. 

In a nutshell, the cognitive approach assumes that information in the world is ambiguous and cognitive-perceptual processes are required to interpret stimuli into meaningful information.  For example, an object is observed through the visual system and the brain uses that stimulation in conjunction with memory to disambiguate and identify the object.  This is in fact how most people understand perception to work. 

The minority alternative comes from the ecological perspective ("ecological" as in a rich stimulus environment, and not related to sustainable design), which posits that information in the world is specific and sufficiently detailed to communicate information without any interpretation.  That is, the visual stimulus is unique and conveys the relevant characteristics to the observer.  

This contrast in approaches also emerged in the world of product and interface design over the term "affordance".  The term was coined by J.J. Gibson, the father of ecological psychology, to define the relationship between an actor (e.g. human, animal) and an object or environment.  For example, a flat surface "affords" sitting on, a pointy one does not.  Note that an affordance is a property that exists whether it is perceived or not or acted on or not. 

Following Gibson, the term "affordance" was popularized, but also modified in use by Donald Norman, among others, to emphasize the perception of an affordance (rather than the existence of one).  In other words, good design is about effectively communicating affordances to the user. 

Now a recent article in Design Studies looks at the issue of affordances vs. perceived affordances in a tangible way - by applying those ideas to the control panel of a stereo system.  The paper summarizes the theoretical issues that I have attempted to touch on above, and then illustrates how they are applied to controls.  While there are not actionable conclusions from this work, it's an opportunity to understand some of the key theoretical issues in perception and design.

Incidentally, ecological psychologists have more fun.

Medical Design Articles in Businessweek

The November 12 issue of Businessweek features two healthcare design related articles:

• Getting Hip to the Boomers discusses the development of market specialized products in the growing joint replacement business.  For example, knee replacement components designed to better fit female patients, or hip replacement joints targeted at younger, more active patients represent targeting more specific consumer categories in the medical market.
• My iPod, My Cell, My Insulin Pump highlights the trends in medical devices towards more user-friendly interfaces, reflecting the design of more familiar consumer electronics devices.  One such example, the GlucoPhone, is a glucose reader that works with a standard mobile phone, eliminating the need for an extra device and facilitating data sharing between patients and healthcare providers.

Norelco Case Study

The latest BusinessWeek Innovation section features a brief case study on how Norelco/Philips applied user research to better understand the requirements:

Philips interviewed 5,000 men in the U.S., Europe, and China. Its target customer was between the ages of 35 and 54, an experienced shaver who is likely to spend more for a premium razor that will last six to seven years. The company searched for some undiscovered consumer need that might be met with a dynamite product—and found an opportunity in an unlikely place. It learned that one of the most common frustrations of shaving has nothing to do with the face: it's those pesky few flat-lying hairs on the neck under the chin. The men interviewed by the company had to shave over those hairs six or seven times, often irritating their skin and leaving welts or spawning in-grown hairs. Philips decided to develop a razor that closely shaves those neck hairs the first time.

MIT Technology Review - The Design Issue

Update (7 May) - The article on the Helio Ocean phone discussed below is now available online, at least temporarily:

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18648/

I've mentioned MIT Technology Review magazine before as an excellent resource for keeping up with emerging technologies, design-related and otherwise.  Well, the May/June 2007 issue is focused on design, with an emphasis on user-centered design and technology.  Articles of interest include:

• case study of the forthcoming Helio Ocean smartphone, specifically the human factors and related mechanical engineering challenges of creating a multi-function mobile device
• discussion of Apple's industrial design process and advantages
• an interview with Bill Moggridge (IDEO)

Note the magazine print edition is currently available, but will be available online in the coming months.  You can actually view the issue's table of contents here, but the article links are not functional yet:

Older issues are available online here.

Examples of Product Simulations

This year's Human Factors section "research project" is taking a look at product simulations - prototype designs created to evaluate the usability and design of potential products.

We're collecting examples of digital simulations that have been produced for product testing and demonstration purposes  - these can range from online demonstrations, interactive flash simulations to stand-alone applications.

Please submit examples through the comment feature of this blog posting, or email directly to Rob Tannen - rtannen@electronicink.com

Please only provide examples that can be publicly shared.

Human Factors Product Design Award

Two medical devices are the winners of the 2006 User-Centered Product Design Award. Submitted entries are judged in terms of application of Human Factors process and the effectiveness of the resulting design.  There was actually a tie this year between two medical devices:

http://www.hfes.org/web/DetailNews.aspx?Id=116

The winning devices are the Medtronic Straightshot M4^TM Microdebrider and Hospira's Symbiq™ Infusion System. Contributing to the winning designs were Metaphase Design Group (Straightshot M4 Microdebrider) and HumanCentric Technologies, Inc. (Symbiq Infusion System).

As a committee judge I can tell you that the overall quality of entries has increased over the years, a sign that HF and user-centered design has a growing presence in industry.

-Rob Tannen

Bad Designs

In case you're not aware, there is a web site that has been collecting examples of poor product design for years.  Here's the link to the latest example:

http://www.baddesigns.com/cheek-music.html

Mapping Emotions

BusinessWeek Online features an article by Dan Formosa of SmartDesign, describing the general methodology for measuring emotional connections to products.  In this case, changes in  perceptions towards band-aids as a function of exposure time to the product.

Vicente's - "The Human Factor"

Kim Vicente's book, The Human Factor discusses the impact of studying human-system interaction, not only at the product or interface level, but all the way through organizational and political systems.

Filled with examples ranging from the design of electric guitars to the contamination of water systems, Vicente demonstrates how human capabilities and behaviors need to be considered at every scale of system design.  Often accidents that are initially attributed to the failure of a single individual and/or product are actually due to failures at multiple scales of a system.

This is recommended, non-technical reading for those with an interest in the background and philosophy behind human factors .

Redesigning the Pill Bottle

Understanding the usability and design limitations of current medication bottles led to the invention of an innovative medication bottle that provides improvements in ergonomics, readability and safety.

Remote Control Design

A case study from the Design Council discusses how ergonomics and user testing led to the succesful design of a cable remote control for a broad population.