DESIGNING *for humans

2007 EPIC Conference Preview

A quick note: A partial program for EPIC, the " third international Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference, to be held October 3-6, 2007 in Keystone, Colorado, USA", is available online.  Unfortunately the site requires a lot of back-and-forth clicking to drill down to individual detail sessions.

iPods for Audio Field Recordings

Chalk up another use for iPods (if you haven't already), as recording devices for field interviews.  The portability, relatively large storage capacity and multi-purpose functionality of the iPod makes it a suitable tool for recording audio with the use of several available microphone attachments (both stereo and mono).

The New York Times recently reviewed some iPod microphones by Belkin, Griffin Technology and XtremeMac.  If anyone has used any of these, as well as associated editing software, please post your feedback as comments.

I'd love to see a video version for decent quality field video recordings.

The Usability Profession

Sunday's New York Times Business Section discusses the emergence and growth of "usability" or "technology untanglers" as a profession (requires free registration):

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/business/yourmoney/08starts.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

While primarily focusing on web/software usability, the article discusses the need in product design as well.  The article also discusses how usability professionals may come from different skill sets, such as anthropology for observation.  Moreover there is a current shortage and expected growth in the field.

Nice to see some recognition, and the article might be useful as means to explain what is it that you do, if you're in the field.

Updated Hand Anthropometric and Strength Data

These are updated links, rather than updated data per se:

Research conducted for by the British government's Department of Trade and Industry on strength factors across ages and nationalities.  Primarily focused on hand-related characteristics (e.g. grip, push-pull strength):

• Strength Data for Design Safety - Part 1
• Strength Data for Design Safety - Part 2
• Anthropometric and strength data for disabled

Extensive hand anthropometry data from U.S. Army study:

• http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA244533&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

2007 HFES Conference Preview

The 2007 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society conference will be in Baltimore, Maryland from October 1 - 5.  You can get basic information about the conference here:

http://www.hfes.org/web/HFESMeetings/07AMregistration.html

There are several presentations that fall under the Product Design Technical Group, including the sixth annual User Centered Design Award.  The easiest way to browse information about these sessions is to follow the link below, then select "Product Design" under the technical group selection:

http://submissions.miracd.com/hfes2007/Itinerary/SearchHome.asp

But don't limit yourself to just those presentations that fall under Product Design.  There are a number of relevant presentations and posters in areas such as aging, healthcare, industrial ergonomics, and safety, to name a few.