DESIGNING *for humans

Past, Present and Future of UX Patents

Several weeks ago I presented on the history and potential future of user experience patents at the User Experience Professionals Association meeting in Seattle - UXPA2016. I covered the basics of "UX Patents", including utility and design patents. Then I went through a whirlwind tour of the last 150 years of patent history, particularly as it relates to the definition and litigation of design patents and user interfaces. The final section of the presentation focused on the upcoming Supreme Court review of the Apple vs. Samsung case, and it's potential impacts on design patents, and the practice of design. The slides from my talk are now available online.

What do User Interfaces Want?

I recently published an essay on UX Mag - "What Do User Interfaces Want? The Next 500 Years of Interaction Design".  It's grounded in the principles of Kevin Kelly's book, What Technology Wants, but extends his ideas above and beyond into the fields of user interface design.  I also wrote about some of the more technically scientific implications of Kelly's book back in 2011.

I'll also be presenting on this topic as the opening speaker on February 20th at the upcoming World IA Day event in Philadelphia.

Presenting at Human Factors Conference

I'll be participating in two sessions at the upcoming Human Factors & Ergonomics Society conference 

• Capturing Data During User Research  - I'm one of several panelist who'll be discussing methods and technologies for gathering and analyzing data in various user research contexts. Preview the focus of my presentation on Four Generations of Qualitative User Research Technology.
  
  
• Intuitive Voting: A Case Study in Rapid Research & Prototype Design - I'll  be presenting the research and design process for the HFES competition-winning concept, Intuitive Voting.

No Swiping. Patents in the Interaction Design Process.

I am collaborating with PhillyCHI  and special guest, Leonid “Lenny” Kravetz, to discuss the basics of design and utility patents, and the relevancy of patents to the interaction design process.

More info below; and for additional details and registration, go to the PhillyCHI site.

** REGISTRATION REQUIRED FOR THIS EVENT **

• Date: Wednesday, June 19, 2013
• Time: 6:00PM – 9:00PM (social time from 6:00PM-7:00PM)
• Location: Bresslergroup, Marketplace Design Center, 2400 Market St. 1-2 (basement), Philadelphia
• Phone: 215-209-3046

About the Presentation

While the visibility and value of user interface patents is greater than ever, the area remains unfamiliar to many interaction designers.  In this informative session, a designer and a patent attorney will explain the basics of design and utility patents. highlight significant examples and discuss the role of patents in the design process.  We will also facilitate a design activity where participants will generate design concepts to avoid infringing on existing patents.

About the Presenters

Rob Tannen, PhD is Director of Research & Interaction Design at Bresslergroup.  He has over 15 years’ experience leading  interface design projects across a variety of industries including aviation, consumer products, manufacturing,  financial services and healthcare.  He is a frequent speaker and contributor to online and print publications including FastCompany.com & Design Bureau as well as his own blog,DesigningForHumans.com. Rob earned a PhD in human factors and is a Certified Professional Ergonomist.  He has consulted on several patent cases and projects.  Follow Rob on Twitter @RobTannen.

Leonid “Lenny” Kravetz is a patent attorney at Panitch, Schwarze, Belisario and Nadel, LLP in Philadelphia, PA. Lenny focuses his practice on patent prosecution and intellectual property transactions in computer-related technology areas. He specializes in developing IP strategy for young technology companies and blogs on this topic at StartupsIP.com. Follow Lenny on Twitter @lkravets.

About Our Sponsor

Bresslergroup is a Philly-based product development firm that’s been delivering innovative solutions for over 40 years. We’re proud to have won more than 80 international design awards and authored well over 130 patents. Our team of PhD-led researchers, engineers, interaction and industrial designers clarify problems and deliver user-centric solutions. Visit www.bresslergroup.com to learn more, and follow us on Twitter at @Bresslergroup.

About PhillyCHI

PhillyCHI is the Philadelphia region’s chapter of the ACM SIGCHI, an interdisciplinary academic and professional group interested in Human-Computer Interaction, User Experience, Usability, and other related disciplines. PhillyCHI holds monthly meetings and socials to network and discuss current topics in HCI. Learn more at phillychi.acm.org or follow along on Twitter at @PhillyCHI.

The Past Present & Future of User Interface Design Patents

 

Animated graphical user interface for a display screen or portion thereof US D609715 S1

 
Last week I attended the United States Patent & Trademark Office's 7th Design Day.  Design Day 2013 focused on  "Designs in the New Digital Age" - design patent issues related to user interfaces. While UI patents had been touched on in previous years, this was the first time that the day-long meeting placed emphasis on this rapidly growing area, and was clearly motivated by last year's Apple-Samsung case. 

 The attendees  and presenters were predominately lawyers and USPTO examiners, along with a handful of  design experts like myself.  As in previous years, the majority of designers attending were drawn from  Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), but with the growth of user interface patents I would expect to see a larger involvement with  interface/interaction designers and organizations in the future.

The opening presentations by the USPTO staff included an update on the written description requirement for design patents by Joel Sincavage, Design Practice Specialist.  Without getting into the details, suffice it to say that the majority of lawyers in the audience were not happy to hear what was being presented and the Q&A turned into what I can only imagine a contentious school board or city council zoning meeting must be like.

This was followed by a much more subdued update regarding the United State's implementation of the Hague Agreement, which will streamline the process of filing design patents across multiple countries.

The subsequent presentations predominately focused on user interface design and comprise my summary.  While the presentations were not structured in a chronological order, there was a clear pattern of discussing the history of UI design patents, current data and future needs:

Past
For context, the patentability of user interfaces has been a topic of discussion for decades, but has only been formalized in recent years and is still evolving.    Cathron Brooks, Supervisory Patent Examiner at the USPTO, described "how it all started" with Xerox applying for design patents on its user interfaces in the 1980s, which catalyzed discussion and debate over what characteristics of user interfaces could be patentable.  

Charles Mauro of MauroNewMedia contextualized the Xerox patents within a timeline, mapping key events in user interface development with important patent events from the 1960s to the present:

 

Charles Mauro's timeline of UI development & patent events

In addition, Masashi Omine, a Deputy Director of the Japan Patent Office (JPO) described the history of interface design patents in his home country, starting from the patenting of liquid crystal display designs (e.g. digital watches) starting in 1986, subsequently extending to graphic images (2006), and more recently, dynamic graphics (2011).  On a related note, China does not currently provide any patent protection for user interface designs, although this may change long-term.

Present
Rob Katz of Banner & Witcoff provided summary statistics on the current state of user interface design patents, which make-up about 2% of all design patent applications.  This translates to roughly 500 UI design patent filings per year with the USPTO, but has been rapidly accelerating. Brooks of the USPTO indicated that "Generated Images" (referring to user interfaces and icons) are the fatest growing segment of design patents.  

It's important to keep in mind that design patents are only one form of intellectual property of protection for user interfaces, which can also be covered by utility patents, trademarks and copyrights.  Mauro suggests that all of these forms of IP protection are needed to cover the entire user experience (UX), but that current processes  are not integrated, requiring a strategic approach. Apple demonstrated such a strategy in their case against Samsung, which included multiple design patents, utility patents and trade dress IP.   Katz  mentioned that it is rare for a design patent to include both aspects of the physical product design and the user interface design, as it is typically more effective to patent each separately. 

 

Charles Mauro's depiction of the multiple forms of UX IP protection

 While user interface patents are growing in prominence and value, there are constraints in the design patent application process.  For example Brooks discussed some of the basic requirements for user interface design patents, which include referencing a physical object or system such as a computer or display screen.  Dynamic interactions such as animations or transitions can be submitted as a series of static images like a "flip book" or storyboard, but only those images presented are covered by the patent.

Future
The takeaways from Design Day 2013 were clear - user interface design patents are more important now than ever, and there is a need to evolve the processes around protecting them.  In the short-term this includes increasing staffing at the USPTO to support the growing number of UI design patent applications, and to continue the dialogue between stakeholders at events like Design Day.  I also strongly recommend that user interface designers improve their education and processes around patents.  

Looking further ahead I would expect the USPTO processes to catch-up (or at least narrow the gap) with the design and technology  it is intended to protect.  This may mean more suitable forms for documenting and describing interactive designs as well as a more cohesive approach to combining related forms of IP such as design and utility patents as appropriate.

Finally, consider what David Kappos, former director of the USPTO, wrote last week in the National Law Journal in a piece entitled Design: The New Frontier of Intellectual Property.  Kappos, perhaps anticipating the discussions that would take place at Design Day 2013, admonished:

"But for the breakthrough ­innovators of the 21st century, design has moved onto a much larger stage. It is where high function meets high style. And the traditional disciplines of IP — patents, trademarks and copyrights — are no longer ends unto themselves but are now viewed as component parts of a larger whole."

Measuring Your User Experience Design (video)

Last month I collaborated with Charles Mauro on a presentation of leading user experience research methods as part of the New York Technology Council's series on User Experience Design.

We presented an overview of research methods in terms of -  the business problems they address, the data generated, relative costs, statistical validity, etc.  I discussed qualitative methods focused on product design including ethnographic research, remote ethnography and observational ergonomics; Mauro covered quantitative web research methods including large-sample online behavior testing and eye tracking.  We provided professional tips on how to be more efficient and what to look out for in terms of efficiency and data quality.

After the intro, my section starts around 11:30 and Mauro resumes with his review of methods aorund 42:00.

You can also access a subset of my slides via SlideShare.

The Challenge of Designing a Multiple-Interface Product

I've been exploring the strengths and weaknesses of designers when it comes to designing multiple interface products. That is, products where the user can interact in various modalities - for example, speech, touch, gesture, and of course physical control.

As more and more products enable a variety of interactions we need to figure out the best way to design these interfaces as individual modes as well as integrated ones.  

I recently facilitated a "DesignSlam" workshop (organized by PhillyCHI and co-sponsored by the IDSA) where teams of interface and industrial designers collaborated on creating a multiple interface solution for a product.  The results were quite interesting.

I could go into more detail, but read the associated articles at:

FastCompany.com -http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663144/how-do-you-create-hybrid-interfaces-you-touch-talk-to-and-poke
 

Core77-http://www.core77.com/blog/events/phillychi_5th_annual_designslam_winners_18448.asp

Flying Kite Media - http://www.flyingkitemedia.com/features/phillychidesignslam0201.aspx

Creating Effective User Interface and Industrial Design Teams

 
Mathieu Turpault (Design Director at Bresslergroup) and I will be presenting at the upcoming IDSA Northeast/CoCreate conference in New Jersey.  We'll be speaking from the personal perspective of growing the user interface capabilities at Bresslergroup over the years and will cover topics including:

• Roles of industrial designers in user interface design
• Industrial-design vs. user-interface design led proccesses
• How and when user research fits in to mixed UI/ID projects
• Whether user interface design is metaphorically peanut butter or jelly

The conference starts on April 16th, and we're speaking at 9am - so get there early.  Also note that it was originally described as a "workshop" but due to time and logistical reasons we're doing it as a presentation, but leaving plenty of time for discussions and questions.

Physical Gestures to Document Design Research

As the number and variety of gestural interface applications has exploded, design researchers have been focusing more on the physical aspects of human-artifact interaction. The potential benefits of gestural interfaces - simplicity, ease of learning, memorability - are valuable to end-users, but also provide an emerging opportunity and challenges for the researchers who study them (see Dan Saffer's presentation on researching interactive gestures).

Typically design research documentation is a cumbersome process of rapid note-taking and rigorous reviews of video recordings.  Over the years I have identified and discussed tools and technologies that can improve the efficiency of design research data collection.  And I see the next wave of user research tools not only focusing on physical interaction, but actually enabling the design researchers to document behavioral observations through their own physical interactions.

Case in point - at Bresslergroup we have been trialling the Nintendo Wiimote controller (pictured above) in conjunction with Techsmith's Morae software as a wireless data tagging system.  Wireless data tagging is an activity that allows one or more researchers to mark key observations, synchronized in real-time.  In fact, wireless tagging was a key element of our FieldCREW concept research tablet (concept tagging device pictured below).

As part of our proof-of-concept for FieldCREW, we have configured the various buttons and controllers on the Wiimote to correspond to task-specific behaviors.  For example, the directional controller can correspond to the direction of an observed person's physical motions, while the other buttons can be mapped to specific tasks or activities.  As a result, a skilled "tagger" can unobtrusively document events in real-time with a single-hand and without interrupting their line of sight to the activity (versus having to look down to write notes).  All of the tagged events become markers corresponding to a synchronized video-recording in Morae.

This is more than a gain of efficiency or convenience.  It is an enhanced means to observe and record physical behaviors, as it changes the role of the observer from a somewhat passive information gatherer to an active, real-time participant, even giving game-like qualities to the research tasks (e.g. when the user moves left, I push left).

I'll be discussing and demonstrating this, as well as other methods for physically documenting physical behaviors at the upcoming Design Research Conference. 

Ergonomics for Interaction Designers - The Video

MFA Interaction Design Fall Lectures: Rob Tannen from MFA Interaction Design on Vimeo.

Here's my recent presentation to the MFA program in Interaction Design at the School of Visual Arts in New York.  Thanks to Liz Danzico.

The presentation was based on a series of articles I wrote in 2009.

Ergonomics for Interaction Designers - Presentation in NYC

On Tuesday 8 December at 6pm, I will be speaking at the MFA Interaction Design program of the School of Visual Arts in New York.  The presentation - Ergonomics for Interaction Designers - is drawn from a series of postings I wrote earlier this year and the presentation I gave at the Industrial Designers Society of America conference in September.  I will also be discussing some new projects and tools, including the tactile pressure sensing glove.

Here's the summary description:

The convergence of digital user interfaces with physical products (e.g., touch screens, gestural interfaces) puts interaction designers in a position where knowledge of ergonomics is valuable, if not essential, for creating effective solutions.

This lecture is an introduction to anthropometric design and research methods, including: explanations of fundamental ergonomic design principles and myths, case studies at the intersection of product and user interface design, and actionable takeaways to apply immediately. The content is geared specifically to interaction designers, relating understood digital design principles and terminology to parallels in physical design.

Attendance is free, but you must RSVP.  See more information, and registration.

Design Research at #IDSA09

Due to my schedule I wasn't able to see many presentations at last week's IDSA conference in Miami, but the select few I did attend were valuable.  Two presentations in particular, while both associated with design research, focused on the latest for novices and experts in that field:

• Katherine Bennett of Art Center College of Design, presented her work-in-progress on teaching user research methods to design students. This focuses on providing tools for self-guidance, such as the diagram pictured above, that helps students choose the right generative method for answering particular research questions. Bennett has also created an "opportunity deck" that assists students in analyzing research data from non-designer perspectives such as business and engineering (pictured below).  For more information, see her blog, Design Investigations.

• For the expert design researcher, Steve Wilcox from Design Science presented his team's work in collaboration with Ethinco Endo Surgery (ESS) on a comprehensive ethnographic research project for a new harmonic scalpel (earning an IDEA gold).  The surgical data gathering, collected from 21 international surgical observations included three-camera synchronized video capture (FieldCREW pre-cursor?) and heart-rate monitoring of the surgeons to correlate tasks with stress level.  The focus of the presentation was on the visualization of the research data to make complex surgical tasks and activities readily visible.

 

 

Upcoming IDSA Design Research Presentations

The IDSA national conference is just a few weeks away (Sept 23 - 26, Miami, Florida).  Here are some of the topics of interest in the areas of interface design, design research, and inclusive design:

Interface Design

• Ergonomics for Interaction Designers
  Rob Tannen, IDSA, director of user research & interface design, Bresslergroup
• Let’s Get Physical
  Gretchen Anderson, director of user interface design, LUNAR

Design Research

• Improv Infusion: "Yes, and" for Better Design/Design Research
  Steve Portigal, founder, Portigal Consulting
• People Can Tell you What They Want and We Can Prove It
  Marty Gage, IDSA, design research practice, lextant; Mark Palmer, director, human factors and design research design integration, Motorola
• Research 2.0
  Jason Hill, designer and researcher, Art Center College of Design
• Designing Design Research
  Katherine Bennett, IDSA, associate professor, graduate and undergraduate industrial design, humanities and design science, Art Center College of Design
• Using Information Graphics to Convey Research Results: The Case of EES|Harmonic Focus
  Steve Eichmann, IDSA, industrial design director, Ethicon Endo-Surgery (EES), a Johnson & Johnson company; Stuart Morgan, IDSA, industrial design director, worldwide research and development, Ethicon Endo-Surgery; and Stephen Wilcox, FIDSA, principal and founder, Design Science Philadelphia
• Transparent User-Centered Design on a Dime
  Andy Hamilton, IDSA, industrial designer; Elizabeth Mauer, senior human factors specialist; and Corinna Proctor, manager and senior specialist, HumanCentric
• Talking the Talk: Design Research for the Young Professional
  Lindsay Armstrong, IDSA, information designer and researcher, Design Science

Inclusive Design

• Trans-Generational Design: Design for Every Age
  David Kratzer, adjunct associate professor of architecture, Philadelphia University/founding principal, BAU Architecture; Wendy Krupnick, program director, Philadelphia University; Michael J. Leonard, IDSA, industrial designer, design educator and owner, Mike Leonard, Designer
• New Adventures in Inclusive Design
  Erika Foureaux, founder and director, Noisinho da Silva, and Steve Wilcox, FIDSA, principal, Design Science
• People with Disabilities Designing for the Mainstream User: Empathic Design Research
  Joyce Thomas, IDSA, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  Demographics are shifting. People are living longer and over a typical lifespan they develop a range of physical disabilities which are no longer perceived as a barrier to having a good quality of life. User expectation of products is growing, suggesting a balanced approach to functionality is more important than ever. Products need to satisfy needs beyond the functional. Rather than designing for the users, we need to be designing intimately with them to ensure that more intuitive design outcomes are generated. Empathic design research is a methodology that relies on the end user being an active partner in the designing process, a co-creator of knowledge.  Using this research approach in a design course at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, students with significant physical (visible) disabilities and industrial design students worked together designing everyday products. This empathic approach highlights research strategies that can support more effective design outcomes. The research project and design course seek to explore learning and teaching methods to enable a person with severe physical disabilities to actively participate in the design process.
  
  
  
  
  

Best Practices in Ethnography

On WEDNESDAY August 5th @ 1pm (EDT) I'll be presenting a webinar as part of the Design Management Institute's (DMI) Design Leadership Series.  Best Practices in Ethnography will cover "everything you wanted to know about user research in product development, but were afraid to ask." 

While many organizations are conducting contextual field research, they are faced with inefficiences, lack of appropriate planning and un-actionable results. 

I'll cover fundamental concerns that are rarely addressed such as:

• how many people to take on their site visits and their specific roles, responsibilities and skills
• the four different types of interview questions and in which situations they apply
• the role of sales in coordinating and participating in site visits
• methods for observing and identifying qualitative ergonomic issues
• high-tech tools for more efficient data capture and analysis

The content is targeted at practicing researchers who would like to improve their processes,and novices who want to start off on the right foot.  Registration is required.

IDSA 2009 Conference - Project Infusion

The 2009 IDSA national conference web site is up and running - check out the cyborg Flamingo(?).  The conference will run from September 23-26 in Miami, Florida.   While detailed presenter information is still pending there's a lot of useful content on the keynote speakers, events, and general info. 

I'll be there, giving a presentation on Ergonomics for Interaction Designers.  Stay tuned for more detailed conference information as it becomes available.

Innovation Methods for Medical Device Development

IDSA.NYC and IDSA's Medical Section present
Innovation Methods for Medical Device Development
Thursday, June 11 — 6:30-8:30 pm ET

Location:
Live: Parsons - 2 West 13th Street, New York, NY
Online: Webinar

Moderator:
Meredith Goodwin Bajaj, IDSA
Chapter Chair, IDSA.NYC

Speaker:
Sean Hägen, IDSA, Principal, Director of Research & Synthesis
BlackHägen Design

In the early 90s the FDA recognized that the majority of deaths and injuries in the healthcare industry associated with adverse effects were due to user error and not device performance or failure. This prompted medical device manufacturers to look more closely at their device definition and development processes to insure that they were doing their due diligence to insure optimum usability.

Sean Hägen will present user research, product planning and development methodologies that meet the need of medical device companies for design practices that optimize ease of use. The presentation will review generative and evaluative research and synthesis methodologies including a case study. The presentation format welcomes audience interaction.

Speaker Bio:
Sean's current focus at BH is in the management of the user research and synthesis phase for product development, which includes ethnography, human factors, usability testing, innovation charrette workshops, translation of research insights into concepts and establishing robust device requirements as they apply to user preferences. Since 1999, Sean has been the Principal Investigator in global, user research projects for clients such as Northrop Grumman, Sunbeam, GE Healthcare, Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Medtronic and Baxter Healthcare. He has lectured on User Research and Applying Human Factors to Systems Design at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and the Sarasota International Design Summit. Since 1999 he has served on the curriculum Steering Committee and conducted workshops at the Fort Lauderdale Art Institute Department of Industrial Design. He is currently the IDSA's Medical Section Vice Chair and a member on the AAMI Human Factors committee for drafting and reviewing guidelines that are incorporated by regulatory bodies such as the FDA, ANSI and ISO.

Fees (for in-person attendance or webinar) :
IDSA Member: $15
Nonmember: $20
Student: $10.00

To register, please visit IDSA's member portal (even if you're not an IDSA member).

FieldCREW an IDEA Finalist

While the FieldCREW design research concept did not win an IDEA award this year, it was selected as a 2009 Finalist in the Computer Equipment Concept category.  I'll highlight the award winners in the Research category when they are announced in July.  In the meantime, here's my discussion of last year's IDEA winners in the Research category.

Asterisks *9 March 2009

• For researchers who need to organize and arrange video footage, LifeHacker reviews the Six Best Video Editing Applications for Mac and Windows.  They range from the professional platform, Avid ($2500) to Windows Movie Maker (basically free).
  
• Core77 summarizes the Greener Gadgets Conference Design Competition winners.  The top contenders tended to focus on influencing behavior through action or motivation as mechanisms to reduce energy usage.
  
• And a reminder about the upcoming IDSA District Conferences, which start up in a couple of weeks, beginning in Boston (above).

Upcoming Research & Design Conferences

I have a pet peeve with unique names/themes for recurring conferences.  Rather than just calling this year's conference "The 2009 XYZ Conference", we see putatively clever or intriguing titles, which may be useful for branding the conference web site, but typically have little do to with the conference content.

With that said, here's a couple of upcoming conferences that promise to be worthwhile, because of, or despite their names:

• Exposed - A Design Research Exchange will be at Arizona State University in just a few weeks (March 6th and 7th).  "Students, professionals and academics will engage with Exposed participants from organizations such as Intel, Smart Design, Herman Miller, frog design, Gravity Tank, Brooks Stevens Inc, Adaptive Path, Flamingo International, ReD Associates, Arizona State University, Lextant and more!"  This is the follow-up to last year's From Here to There conference.
  

• Project Infusion is the working title for 2009 international IDSA conference that will be held in Miami in September.  It's still early in planning for this one, but the call for submission abstracts is only until March 6th.

2009 IDSA Events

For those early planners, IDSA has posted the dates and locations for the national conference (in September) and the upcoming spring regional district conferences:

• Mideast District Conference
  May 1-3, 2009
  Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel—Pittsburgh, PA
• Midwest District Conference
  April 3-5, 2009
  Hyatt Regency Minneapolis—Minneapolis, MN
• Northeast District Conference
  March 27-29, 2009
  Hyatt Regency Cambridge—Cambridge, MA
• Southern District Conference
  April 3-5, 2009
  Hilton, St. Charles—New Orleans, LA
• Western District Conference
  April 24-26, 2009
  Sheraton Delfina—Santa Monica, CA

Enter 2009 IDEA Awards

The entry information and forms for the 2009 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEAs) is now available.  Keep in mind that there are specific forms for Research and Interaction Design entries, but in all cases the downloadable forms are for offline reference - the actual application process seems to be entirely online.

For reference, here's a summary of my experience as a juror in 2008 and also my recommendations for submitting an entry (written specific to the ID Magazine Annual Review, but relevant to IDEA as well).

Design Research Conference Videos Online

     

An initial set of speaker videos from this past September's Design Research Conference are now available.  This includes:

• Luis Arnal - Field Stories from Latin America: Considerations for Design Researchers
• Colleen Murray - Setting Research Targets: Using a Scenario Planning Process to Envision How the World Might Change
• Liz Sanders - Co-Creation and the New Landscapes of Design
• Rob Tannen - High-Definition User Research
• Miguel Gomez Winebrenner - Maximizing Design and Innovation by Keeping a Pulse on Multicultural Audiences

Here's a write-up of my experience as a conference attendee.

DFH Follow-Ups

Here's some follow-ups on several items I've blogged about in recent months:

• Redesigned BMW iDrive: The New York Times reviewsthe improved user interface (including rotary text entry, pictured above) and control system for the storied design failure that I discussed most recently in July.
  

• Design Research Blog: Sam Ladner provides a new article and slide set discussing Qualitative versus Quantitative Research (part 2) on her blog.  I discussed a couple of her earlier posts on design research back in June.

• Design Research Portfolio Review: Last, but not least, following up from this past April's IDSA northeast district conference, Marty Gage (Lextant) has provided his presentation slides for his talk, What is a Design Research Portfolio? - Download Research_portfolio_final(PDF).

Event: User Research Friday - San Francisco

A half-day conference on user research (registration required) that includes alcohol:

• Friday, November 7th, 1-5pm
• @Mighty Gallery & Bar, 119 Utah Street, San Francisco
• Theme: What does user research accomplish?
• Speakers: Indi Young, Dan Saffer, Steve Portigal, Nate Bolt & Maya Duiker 

Mythbusters - Design Research Edition

People Can’t Tell You What They Want – and nine other design research myths.

View SlideShare presentationor Uploadyour own. (tags: conferencepolaropposites)

Chris Rockwell's (Lextant) IDSA conference presentation on design research myths is available via SlideShare...and directly above.  There's no audio,but the slide text is largely self-explanatory.  This was one of the presentations that I regret missing since I wasn't at the conference, so I'm glad it has been made available. 

I particularly appreciate Rockwell challenging the now cliche notion that "people can't tell you what they want" (Myth #2), which has been used as a rallying cry for observational research over interviews and focus groups.  In fact both interviews and observations are effective and have their place when done appropriately (and in most cases, co-exist). 

Similarly, "Designers can't design until research is complete" (Myth #10) again brings the real-world perspective against theoretical ideals.  If anything, the mainstream emphasis on design research in recent years should have increased the cross-collaboration between research and design.

Lextant is also hosting a recurring conference call program on various topics.  Today it's on Design Hacks (registration required) and features Steve Portigal. 

FieldCREW - A User Research Technology Concept

At this past weekend's Design Research Conference(DRC2008), I presented on the topic of user research technologies -  what's currently in use and some of the newer tools that can be applied to research (if you read this blog with any regularity then you know what I'm talking about). 

One of the key points I discussed is the lack of tools that are specifically and intentionally designed around the needs of user researchers with respect to data gathering, analysis and communication of findings.  To address that need, I've been working with the design team at Bresslergroup on creating a concept user research technology platform.  While still under creative development, I took the opportunity of the DRC to present our work in progress.

The field-based contextual research workstation, or FieldCREW, is primarily targeted at improving data collection efficiency, particularly when studying complex, multi-dimensional work situations such as surgery in an operating room or a construction crew.

FieldCREW brings together a number of "near-future" technologies to support user research in two contexts:

• When a researcher is working by him/herself and needs to play the role of both note-taker and videographer

• When a team of observers is working together and needs a way to synchronize their observations around multiple events

The Workstation consists of the tablet and several wireless data gathering components (see illustrations in the slideshow below).  The components include:

• Wireless, remotely controlled tracking video cameras for audio and video recording
• Handheld wireless taggers that allow each observer to tag key events of their choosing for later review - tagging is synched to a common timeline on the tablet
• Subvocalization sensor allows the researcher to silently dictate notes that are automatically transcribed to text and stored on the tablet

The tablet manages and receives data from these wireless components and provides features including:

• Video notation (i.e. telestrator) for annotation of events as they happen
• Speech-to-text translation of recorded audio (and subvocalizations)
• Access to stored and online project and research reference materials
• Built-in storage and recharging for wireless components
• Synchronization of all input sources (video, tagging, notes) for streamlined analysis

In a research scenario the lead researcher (or an associate) can manage the data from multiple observers and utilize tagging and annotation features to prioritize key observations, speeding up the analysis process.  Similarly, a single researcher, working alone, can do the work of a team by coordinating input from multiple sources.

And while FieldCREW has the capabilities to support complex field research situations, it can also be used by a single researcher conducted a one-on-one interview, much like a clipboard is used.

We'd appreciate your questions, comments and suggestions as we continue to develop this new platform for facilitating user research.

Design Research Conference Recap

[added Sept. 28th - for an "outsider" view of the the recent Design Research and IDSA conferences, read the Conference Crasher blog]

Rather than giving a play-by-play of DRC2008, I refer you to John Kolko's well-written review, which includes his detailed notes from all of the presentations.  While I didn't agree 100% with all of John's opinions (e.g. I'm not "equally as witty" as Don Norman), we both found the conference to be excellent.  John's analysis includes a comparison to the recent IDSA national conference, but I feel that's like comparing apples to oranges.  That is, a small, focused conference like DRC is always going to have an advantage over a large , multi-focused event like a national conference, and given the choice, I'd go for the smaller conference (a choice I made this year).

Some of the highlights of the DRC for me were:

• The workshop that John Kolko and Ashley Menger gave on "Design Synthesis".  Though it had to be rushed through, they provided valuable guidance and materials for diagramming and visualizing concepts and research findings - certainly an area that needs this kind of guidance.
• Liz Sander's presentation that provided a framework for the various types of research-led an design-led methods.  This actually built off of an article she wrote for Design Research Quarterly a couple of years ago.
• Luis Arnal's anecdotes on conducting research in Latin America - including do's and dont's for visiting Favelas(slums), an interesting cultural perspective.
• Don Norman talking about social design, which includes social aspects of systems (like waiting in line at a bank), as well as the "social" relationships between products (e.g. products that are designed well independently, but fail technically and/or aesthetically when put together).

The conference schedule, pacing, location and materials were all thoughtfully chosen and effective.  Highly recommended for next year.  And for those who didn't make it this year, I'll let you know when the conference presentation videos are put online.  In the meantime, you can check out the growing number of photos tagged to the conference on Flickr (displayed above).

Product Design Focus at Human Factors Conference

Just a reminder, the annual meeting of the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society (otherwise known as the HFES conference) will happen in New York City this week.  See the PDTG Summer 08 Newsletter  for a summary of the relevant presentations and activities a the conference, including the User-Centered Product Design Award on Tuesday afternoon, and the combined IDSA-NYC/HFES get-together on Tuesday evening.

IDSA/HFES Networking Event in NYC

For those attending the upcoming Human Factors & Ergonomics Society meeting in New York in a couple of weeks, or anyone in the NYC area who might be interested:

The IDSANYC – HFES Product Design Technical Group networking event has been set for the Garden of Ono restaurant/bar at the Gansevoort Hotel - http://www.hotelgansevoort.com/restaurants-bars-lounges/index.cfm. 

The hotel is located at 18 9^th avenue, at the corner of 13^th street.  It is easily accessible by subway—take the A/C/E to 14^th street, and walk one block west, and one block south.  The entrance is complete with a red carpet and is easy to find, as it’s the only opening in the wall.

Design Science has provided a generous sponsorship which will provide for hors d'oeuvres for the group.  Any contribution from PDTG would also be appreciated.  We will not have an assigned place to congregate, but we will put up a sign to mark our area.

Event details at a glance:

• Date: Tuesday September 23, 7:30 PM – after the PDTG business meeting at the conference

• Location: Garden of Ono, at the Gansevoort hotel: 18 9^th avenue, corner of 13^th street and 9^th avenue.  Just follow the red carpet in!  http://www.hotelgansevoort.com/maps-directions/index.cfm

• Food and drinks are a la carte, aside from hors d’oeuvres.

For more info, contact David Miller - [email protected]

 

Upcoming Research Conference Programs

A number of upcoming conferences have released their programs to help you decide whether to go and what to see when you get there:

The IDSA National Conference - Polar Opposites (Sept 10-13, Arizona)  features a range of topics.  For the design research crowd there's: People Can't Tell You What They Want and Nine Other Design Research Myths
Chris Rockwell, IDSA, founder and president, Lextant.

The line-up for the Design Research Conference (Sept 19-20, Chicago) looks pretty much completed, although the order of speakers has yet to be determined.  Some of the workshops are already filled up.

The Human Factors & Ergonomics Society (Sept 22-26, New York) program is not easy to navigate (go figure). It's a very large conference so you can search by day or category, but there's no easy way to browse through all the sessions to see what's of interest.  You can search with Technical Groups - for example there's about a dozen or so presentations related to Product Design, ranging from "Sensory Quality Evaluation of Clothes Washing Machine Selector Knobs" to "The Boeing 787 Dreamliner --- A Case Study in Large-Scale Design Integration".

And last, but not least, EPIC 2008 (Oct 15-18, Copenhagen).  You'll need to click through each section to see the content offerings.

I'll be at the Design Research Conference and at least part of HFES, if anyone would like to meet-up and say hi.

Design Research Conference - September 2008

 

While the list of speakers and schedule is still being assembled, this year's IIT Design Research Conference is scheduled for September 19 - 20 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.  The lineup already features heavy-hitters Don Norman and Liz Sanders, and topics including mental models, sceanrios, field stories to research technology.  Registration will start at the end of May.

IDSA Boston - Research in Focus, May 18

The IDSA Boston Chapter is holding it's second annual design research event on Thursday, May 15th:

"Please join us for our second annual design research event! This year, presenters will focus on how research, strategy, design, and business come together to produce results and create opportunities in the context of case studies. The topics will include how clients receive research, the integration of research in the product development process, and how people work with research as a team. We have a diverse panel of speakers each offering an exiting view of the latest in research results. The presentations will be followed by a question and answer session.

Our speakers include:
Heather Reavey: Senior Strategist, Continuum
Elizabeth Lewis: Director of Research and Strategy, Catapult Thinking
Mikey Siegel: Research Assistant at MIT Media Lab, Personal Robots Group"

You can RSVP via Evite.

Recap: Design Research at IDSA Northeast District Conference

While design research wasn't the overall theme at this past weekend's northeast district conference, it was certainly a prominent part of it.  On Saturday, Marty Gage spoke about the how to better communicate design research findings to designers - focusing on the essential transition between research findings and design solutions.  And research was wide-awake on sleepy Sunday.  We had our two-parter (panel/portfolio review)focusing on design research:

During the morning panel discussion, Art Swanson discussed the value of data visualization as a way of presenting information to clients.  Visualization, as opposed to analysis, presents data in an unfiltered, interactive manner to allow people to draw their own conclusions.  He suggested wefeelfine.organd gapminder.org as a couple of interesting examples of data visualization.

Sunmee Kim spoke next, focusing on the various aspects of a design research project at Motorola.  She finished by discussing an internal tool used by all of the design researchers around the world at Motorola to document and share data.

And Marty Gage appeared again, combining clear tactical advice with humor in discussing what should go into a design research portfolio.  It should be an extension of your design portfolio (if you have one), but is about meaning, not sexy imagery.

Following some great Q&A with the speakers, we had the first design research portfolio review, which was combined with the overall portfolio review (see photo above, courtesy of Core 77, and some more photos from that session).

My initial feedback on participating in the research portfolio review was that while there weren't many examples of detailed research projects to review,  it was useful to have professional researchers giving input to design students.  I'd love to hear feedback from other reviewers/reviewees, so please feel free to add your comments.

From Here to There: Design Research Symposium

A little late notice here, but in a few weeks, Arizona State University is hosting a weekend symposium (April 11-13, 2008) on the state-of-the-art in design research:

"This event is initiated and organized by students from the Master of Science in Design and PhD in Environmental Design and Planning programs in an effort to facilitate learning about design research in the context of academic and professional practice. Crafted to maximize interaction, the symposium will include plenary sessions with ample time for conversation, as well as afternoon workshops to deepen understanding of specific methods and topics. The intended audience is anyone who is curious about the practice of research within the context of design."

Some of the more interesting sounding topics include:

• "Design Research Career Development" (Matthew Jordan)
• "A Day in the Life of a Design Researcher: Introspective Ethnography" (Matt Zabel)
• "Statistics, Sex, Dogs, v. Cats, and the Role of Design" (Dan Formosa).

The schedule and list of speakers from academia and industry is provided in the conference flier PDF.

Design Research Presentations & Portfolio Review @IDSA NED

Here's the full scoop on the Design Research focus at the upcoming IDSA Northeast district conference in  Philadelphia.  The district conference runs from April 4-6, and the two-part design research part will take place on the morning of Sunday, April 6th:

1. Presentations (around 9:30am):  Conducting design research is essential, but how do you "design" the results of research? We've assembled a panel of professionals from industry and consulting to present the latest techniques in communicating design research. Speakers including Marty Gage (Lextant), Sunmee Kim (Motorola), and Art Swanson (Misys) will share their ideas and examples, followed by a question and answer session moderated by Rob Tannen (Bresslergroup).
2. Design Research Portfolio Review (around 11:00am): For the first time, IDSA is holding a portfolio review session specifically focused on design research. This is open to students and professionals interested in getting feedback and guidance on their design research work. This can range from observational studies to usability testing or anything else that applies. You'll get expert advice from design research professionals in an open, collaborative forum - so nothing confidential please.  This will be a subsection of the general design portfolio review where, so you can get your work reviewed from both the design and research perspectives. 

If you have any questions, please contact me directly at [email protected]

User-Centered Product Design Award

Call for Entries and Judges

The Product Design Technical Group (PDTG) of the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society is again sponsoring a competition for its User-Centered Product Design Award.  The award will emphasize both product design and methods used to specify and achieve the design.  Emphasis will be placed on innovative and user-centered approaches to Human Factors and Industrial Design. 

• Consideration is limited to products, software or systems that are purchased for use in the home, in the workplace, or while mobile. They include consumer, commercial, and medical products, but exclude military equipment or systems.
• The product or system being nominated must be operational and capable of being marketed with no more than minimal changes.
• Products already on the market for more than three years will not be considered.
• At least one team member who contributed significantly to the project must be a member of HFES.  Membership in the Product Design Technical Group is not required.

The nominations should be submitted in electronic form by a human factors professional.  Detailed submission requirements, including the submission format, are shown on the PDTG website at http://pdtg.hfes.org.  More information concerning PDTG and previous User-Centered Product Design Award winners appears at the PDTG website.

The deadline for submitting nominations is April 25th, 2008. Nominations should be submitted electronically to Dianne McMullin at [email protected].

The winning product/system will be recognized at the 2008 HFES Annual Meeting in September, 2008 and the awardees will be asked to present a talk on the product and methodology.  The awardees will also be expected to submit a paper to “Ergonomics in Design” within two months of the meeting. 

An award selection committee consisting of a panel of judges drawn from the PDTG membership will evaluate the submissions.  Judges may award multiple winners or a combination of winners and honorable mentions.  Judging will be done by a predetermined systematic process and will take place in June.

For more information or to volunteer for the award selection committee, please contact Stan Caplan at [email protected].

Interaction Design for Industrial Designers

Simultaneous with the first ever Interaction Design Association conference, IxDA founder David Malouf has an article on Core77 - Interaction Design and ID: You're already doing it...don't you want to know what it's all about?  He makes the important and valid point that embedded technology requires an understanding of interaction design by IDers.  The article provides a high-level overview of interaction design - it's not just about digital design, as his own examples from Motorola illustrate.

Malouf advocates that Industrial Designers need to increase their understanding of interactivity, for example to understand and design for interactions that change over time:

"So if product designers are facing a deluge of interaction design challenges (and they are), why is such poor attention being paid to bringing interaction design into the fold of the industrial design community?"

He then goes on to advocate several useful resources for interaction design, including schools, books, and organizations (like IxDA).

I found this article touched very close to my own experience.  I am a member of both IDSA and IxDA, which is probably not too rare, although I went against traffic by going from working primarily in interaction design to now focusing on industrial design.  In fact, a key driver of my current position was to bring interaction design and usability expertise to a predominately industrial design based firm,  So with that all said, I appreciate where Malouf is coming from. 

At the same time, I found his article one-sided - certainly its publication in Core77 suggests a largely ID audience, and Malouf does recognize shortcomings on both sides (ID and IxD):

"interaction designers lack access to traditional and formal general design education and training, and industrial designers lack any formal education and practice of interactivity"

But the clear message is that Industrial Designers need to get their stuff together around interaction design. I wonder if the reverse message is getting through to interaction designers - I would guess not likely.  Why?  In a word - specialization.  Time constraints and project complexity require collaborative, multi-disciplinary teams to solve design problems effectively.  There is overlap between  ID and IxD, just as there is overlap between these  disciplines and architecture, but overlap and awareness are not the same as proficiency, and certainly not efficiency across multiple design disciplines.

Neither IDers not IxDers "lacks access" to the training of the other, but there are skill sets that are separate and specific  to industrial design as there are for interaction design.  In the near-future, I would expect to see "domain designers" who are focused on multiple aspects of a given product category (e.g. mobile devices, automobiles).  Such "hybrids" would have deep knowledge of ID, IxD and other relevant methods for their particular field, but at the potential loss of discipline knowledge beyond their particular field of specialization.  I see this already in the difference between the analogy bases of consultants versus long-time internal/corporate designers.

Also, while Malouf criticizes last year's IDSA conference for a lack of emphasis on interaction design, he should have also mentioned that there was a great ID/IxD collaboration simultaneous with the conference put on by the San Francisco chapter of IxDA - INTERSECTION: Where Interaction and Industrial Design Meet (attendance was definitely skewed towards the interaction designers, but I represented).

For another interesting perspective on the same topics, I suggest reading Carl Alviani's Hacking the Physical Wolrd: What we taught software designers, and what they're trying to teach us.

And finally, a request to the IxDA.  The daily volume of thought provoking IxDA discussion threads is impressive - but I'd love to see an innovative solution to help me (and I imagine I am not alone) more easily find content of  interest without having to go through so many messages each day.

Updates on IDSA District Conferences

Several of the upcoming district conferences have their 2008 web sites up - content still in progress, but expect them to fill out every the next few weeks.  Online registration is open on some of these sites as of this posting.

• Southern (March-8, Savannah, Georgia)
• Midwest (April 4-6, Kansas City, Missouri)
• Northeast (April 4-6, Philadelphia, PA) - site pending
• Mideast (April 11-13, Columbus, Ohio) 
• Western (April 25-27, Portland, Oregon) - site pending

You can see a list of all the IDSA district information on the IDSA site.

Specific information regarding conference content related to human factors and design research is TBD, but please send me any info that you know of at this time. 

Plans are moving ahead for the Design Research Portfolio Review at the Northeast district conference.  While still being refined, the plan is to have a two-part program:

• A series of short-presentations on communicating design research, followed by a moderated discussion.
• A portfolio-review session open to students and professionals interested in getting feedback on their user research work.  More details, presentation guidelines and registration information forthcoming.

IDSA District Conferences and Other Upcoming Events

• The IDSA site lists some dates for the upcoming regional conferences.  Note that many of these dates are still tentative and subject to change.  For example, the Northeast District conference is listed as April 18-20, but has already been moved up to April 4-6.  Also the conference themes/names and the links to the web sites may be leftover from last year or non-functional.  Your best bet is to contact the regional VP for your district (listed on the same page), to get the scoop.  We'll provide a more clear posting once things are locked-down.
• The web site for the 2008 Design and Emotion Conference (Hong Kong) is online.  "The International Conference on Design & Emotion is a forum where practitioners, researchers and industry meet and exchange knowledge and insights concerning the cross-disciplinary field of design and emotion."
• The web site for the 2008 Healthcare Systems Ergonomics and Patient Safety Conference (France).  "The first HEPS conference aimed at creating bridges among different disciplines (medicine and surgery, information technology, occupational psychology, clinical engineering and architecture, human factors and ergonomics) in order to share a strong interest in the promotion of human factors and ergonomics in healthcare and patient safety."

Eight Design Research Themes for 2008: Technologies and Methodologies

2007 has witnessed the continued maturity of user research practices in product design/development organizations. As this continues, we look to 2008 and key areas of growth and change in user research technologies and methodologies. What many of these themes have in common reflects a shift from how to conduct research, to how to manage all of the research findings and results – clearly a positive trend and a nice problem to have.   Stay tuned into 2008 as these themes are tracked in further detail.

Technologies

Even a casual reader of this web log will have observed the ever-growing options in data gathering technologies available for a variety of research applications. For 2008, the themes in technology are diverse – from high definition video to a new resource of anthropometric head measurements of the Chinese population. But the more compelling tools address needs in organizing and analyzing qualitative data:

1. High Definition (HD) Video- HD video cameras are rising in popularity while falling in price. Higher resolution video means larger file sizes and typically more time for video editing and file management. On the other hand, greater visual clarity can be extremely valuable for studying fine motor control tasks, small control/interface element usage and visually-rich environments. Surgical observation and consumer electronics usability are two applicable areas for HD video.

2. International Anthropometric References – Much of the reference anthropometric data used to guide designs is based on the body dimensions European and North American populations, limiting applicability and, ultimately fit, to a broader user population. The availability of three-dimensional scanning technology, while still time-consuming and expensive, is driving the inclusion of additional populations. Size China is a program to create the first-ever digital database of Chinese head and face shapes for helmets, sunglasses and surgical masks. Such resources will provide a richer starting point for guiding form and size in product designs, but of course are not a replacement for fit testing with real participants.

3. Qualitative Data Management Software – As research capabilities mature, organizations will deal with a new set of challenges around handling larger volumes of research data. Research teams will struggle with organizing, presenting and efficiently re-using findings across projects. With that “embarrassment of riches, there is a need for techniques and tools that support research data management. For example, QSR Internationals’s forthcoming NVivo 8 provides a structure for entering, tagging and querying various forms of multimedia, qualitative data across multiple projects. These types of tools will enable more effective collaboration amongst both localized and geographically distributed researchers, and can provide a centralized repository for observational data.
4. Qualitative Data Analysis Software – The value of well-conducted research is extremely limited if it is not easily organized for effective communication. It is especially challenging to organize, analyze and interpret qualitative data such as user interview transcripts and observational field notes. Following many years of adapting general purpose software and technology, we now have access to a variety of software and hardware tools to support planning, collection, analysis and sharing of research data. Several new technologies can support unstructured data analysis in various ways including searching speech via text and syntactically mapping information. For example, IBM’s Many Eyes application visualizes text in a tree-like branching structure to enable more efficient analysis and data mining.

 

Methodologies

Design research methods will continue to adapt for studying the wider range of user experiences, beyond the primary product. Frameworks and techniques for mapping out user touch points will assist research planning, which will become specialized to particular domains (e.g. medical vs. consumer). Threading across all of this is the need for guidelines for effective research communication and presentation:

5. Comparative Ethnography - While many organizations are using ethnographic observation to understand end-user perspectives and stimulate innovative thinking, such research is frequently focused on a limited set of tasks and users. But a growing trend is to use ethnographic methodology to identify differences between contexts. For example, in a study of automobile driving behavior, Bresslergroup’s research plan not only focused on the in-car driving experience, but studied related, non-driving activities. Observing how comparable tasks (e.g. planning a route, choosing music to enjoy) are conducted in disparate contexts (in this case, in car vs. in home) provides unique insights to inform creative solutions.

6. Service Design - Beyond the “total product lifecycle” approach, organizations will need to understand where they fit within the range of loosely tied user experiences beyond the product itself. For example, medical implant designers should expand user research beyond surgery to understand the touch points that potential patients, caregivers and healthcare providers utilize to make treatment decisions, prepare for surgery, and deal with recovery and beyond. The emerging discipline of service design provides a framework for understanding how multiple types of providers and users interact across the various products, interfaces and environments where interactions and decisions occur.

7. Domain-Specific Research Methods – Although research practices can vary among domains (e.g. medical, consumer, industrial), core methods remain consistent. But as research teams mature, there is a movement towards industry-specific user research and design techniques. For example, in appliance design, usability testing with high-fidelity simulations is frequently necessary to elicit reliable performance feedback from consumers. By contrast, healthcare professionals are typically more capable of responding to lower-fidelity prototypes, partly attributable to their professional problem-solving processes.

8. Presenting Design Research – Typically, product development organizations can effectively present and communicate their work and capabilities in design and engineering. But even when products are backed by quality user research, teams may struggle with effectively communicating its influence on product design. Similarly, organizations have difficulty evaluating the research capabilities of potential employees. The Industrial Designers Society of Americas (IDSA) is leading the way in developing guidelines for design research presentations, starting with the organization of design research portfolio workshop & review at the Northeast District conference this April in Philadelphia.

Portfolio Review for Design Researchers

You read that right - a portfolio review for design researchers. 

With the growing number of design researchers and the importance of research as a skill for designers, there's a need for guidance on putting together a design research portfolio.

We are in the early planning stages, with the goal to pilot this at the Northeast District IDSA conference in Philadelphia, April, 2008 (district conference web site is not up yet).  This would likely be a sub-section of the overall design portfolio, with an emphasis on research methods.  The reviews will focus on the quality and presentation of:

• formulating research questions
• identifying research participants
• methods of conducting research and capturing data
• organization and analysis of findings
• communication of results and outcomes

It would be open to both students and professionals with work in design research, including designers, human factors specialists, design researchers, anthropologists, etc.

If you are a professional with experience in design research or human factors, and are planning to attend the NE district conference and are interested in serving as a reviewer, please contact me at [email protected]  Also, if you have suggestions or examples for the review process, guidelines, etc, please forward those to me as well.

Nothing written in stone  yet, so stay tuned...

UPDATE - Conference date has been set for first weekend of April 4-6, 2008.

Human-Centered Design Workshop - NYC

The New York City chapter of IDSA is holding a human-centered design workshop on Saturday November 17th at Pratt in Brooklyn.  The event will include the following presentations in the morning:

• Usability and Human Factors :: Stan Caplan - Usability Associates
• Using Human Factors resources in product design :: Dan Harel
• Needfinding and interviewing :: Jenna Shanis - Peel Design
• User Interface design and evaluation :: Adam Shames – Design Science

Followed by collaborative group sessions in the afternoon.

Registration costs between $20 and $40 via Paypal links on the site.

Connecting '07 - Service Design Results

A summary report from the service design analysis of the Connecting '07 conference has been posted.  The report includes an overview of the service design research and suggestions for improving the conference experience in four areas, Invitation (pre-conference), Orientation (navigating at the conference, Participation (involvement in conference activities) and Memorializing (takeaways following the conference)

Among the key findings and recommendations are:

• Leveraging web technology to support planning and choice leading up to the conference
• Supporting sustainability through recycling during the conference
• Promoting the growth of non-IDSA conference-related activities (e.g. Airbed & Breakfast)
• Enabling attendees to create a personalized "scrapbook" integrating notes, photos, sketches and other related contents collected during the conference

Download the Connecting '07 Service Design Results

HF Highlights from Connecting '07 - Size China

Given the 140(!) sessions that took place at the 2007 IDSA national conference this year in San Francisco, there's no shame in missing a few sessions.  Of course the topics that you really want to see all occur simultaneously, leaving one with a "paradox of choices".   

I was most impressed by Roger Ball's Size China:  A New World of Ergonomics.  Roger is a designer by training and professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic.  For the last 18 months, he has been building a database of anthropometric data by digitally scanning over 2,000 Chinese citizens.  The project was inspired by the lack of a comprehensive anthropometric database of Asian head and facial features, comparable to what is available for Caucasian populations.  For example, most helmets used in China were designed against Caucasian measurements and are ill-fitting due to significant differences in head shape between Asians and Caucasians(see image).

Roger said that his data will be made available for free to academic endeavors by contacting him directly.

Learn more about the project at: http://www.sizechina.com/html/index.html

I was intrigued by this project and interested in potential differences in perceived and reported fit among populations, not due to head size, but due to potential cultural and linguistic variances in what is considered comfortable and fitting. Perhaps some of the presenations on measuring emotion would have helped me address those issues, but like I said, I couldn't make all of the presentations.

IDSA 2007 Conference Human Factors Presentations

I've pulled summaries of some of the key human factors and design research related presentations from the upcoming Connecting '07 conference schedule -but by no means complete nor a subsitute for reviewing the full program yourself:

From Me to You: Designer Connecting to User (Thurs, Oct 18, 2PM-Masonic)

Ayse Birsel and Bibi Seck

Although the designer and the user are at opposite ends of the design spectrum, they each have a strong, emotional sense of ownership over a product. The designer thinks the product is his, my baby; the user thinks the product is hers, my thing. The transfer of ownership that happens between the two is what sustains a design process. This is what we will explore with you during our CONNECTING’07 presentation.

Blurring the Boundaries between Anthropology and Design (Thurs, Oct 18, 430PM-Masonic)

Suzanne Gibbs Howard

Today is a good day to be an anthropologist. Anthropologists and other social scientists are in demand by design divisions, marketing firms, advertising agencies, and innovation consultancies. Thanks to the popularity of the “voice of the customer” and the dominance of Human Centered Design, many researchers with a passion for studying people are finding happy homes in the world of design. Suzanne will share stories from her experience working at IDEO to illustrate how anthropologists and other social scientists have been working alongside designers to inspire innovation.

2:00pm - 2:45pm - Thurs, Oct 18- Fairmont

Crystal RoomHuman Factors Section: Evolving Empathy: Deeper and Wider Design Impact

Jane Fulton Suri, IDSA, Managing Partner and Co-Chief Creative Officer, IDEO; Aaron Sklar, Human Factors Designer, IDEO; Introduction by Stephen B. Wilcox, PhD, FIDSA

The Human Factors Section will present a brief overview of recent developments in human factors and design research followed by a presentation by Jane Fulton Suri of how IDEO addresses human factors.

5:45pm – 6:30pm - Thurs, Oct 18- Fairmont

CrystalRoomDesigning The Medical Experience

Brian Stonecipher, IDSA, Continuum

All of us have been medical consumers at one time in our lives. Come to think of it, we are all medical consumers a lot of times in this life, whether as patients, family members, caregivers or medical administrators. Moreover, we are spending more and more time in a medical environment because the medical environment is no longer just a hospital or a doctor’s office. It can be one’s home, office, or even car. As the medical environment transitions from the hospital to the home (or car or office) new considerations come into place. A high level of usability is key.  Human error can cause illness or even death.  Sound, well thought out design is imperative. How would you describe your last medical experience as a medical consumer? Were you scared? Confused? Positive and confident? What was your environment? How did this affect your comfort level as a patient or caregiver? In this presentation I explore how Continuum develops an understanding of the perceptions and emotional needs of all types of medical consumer in all types of environments – and how we use those findings to design products that deliver a better experience.

2:00pm – 2:45pm, Fri, Oct 19th, Fairmont

Gold Room

Size China: A New Worldof Ergonomics Roger Ball, IDSA, Hong KongPolytechnicUniversity

Size China.com has created the first ever digital database of Chinese head and face shapes. Most current consumer products such as sunglasses, motorcycle helmets and hygienic facemasks are designed for western head and face shapes and, as a result, do not fit Chinese people properly. Size China.com will solve this problem by creating practical, sophisticated design tools for industries that need to create the next generation of perfect fitting products.

4:30pm – 5:15pm, Fri, Oct 19th, Fairmont

CrystalRoom

Seeking a Shared Understanding of Design Research

Marty Gage, IDSA and Spencer Murrell, IDSA, lextant

Over the past decade, companies have made big strides toward integrating disparate disciplines into a seamless product development process in order to shorten time to market and improve outcomes. Yet the relationship between research and design remains less mature than that between engineering and design. This presentation will describe how to effectively integrate research and the social sciences with cross-functional product development teams. A shared team experience will provide a foundation for breakthrough ideas and real-life solutions that can be commercialized as quickly as today’s economy demands.

4:30pm – 5:15pm, Fri, Oct 19th, Fairmont

Vanderbilt Room

The Art and Science of Measuring Emotion

Laura Richardson, M3

Design brings together aesthetics and the bottom line, experience and strategy, emotions, and data. Every consumer has a different emotional history toward a product and its brand, whether or not the product is familiar. Yet once the user begins to test a given product, he relates through a series of conscious or subconscious assessments. He examines the product’s utility and usability, its task efficiency, controllability, challenging features, ergonomic properties, etc. The product may meet the user’s usability assessment, but fail in its emotional appeal, a second layer of assessment based on five categories of relation: surprise, instrumental, aesthetic, social, and interest. Finally, once product acquisition and initial inspection have passed, the user moves to product attachment, that is, its emotional afterlife. Product attachment can also be perceived by imagined use of the product and what the user aspires to become by using the product. A substantial body of work has been performed around emotional usability and engagement. Research to date has hinged on three primary measurements – the use of facial expression, the use of metaphor, and the use of emotional terms. Laura Richardson, director of design research for M3, has developed a new perspective in examining users’ emotional responses. She has developed an “emotion engine” and an “emotion timeline” as part of her analysis.

Applied Ergonomics International: Special Session on Driving

From the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society - Product Design Technical Group:

A special session on driving, chaired by Pat Jordan will be held at the Applied Ergonomics International Conference which is being held in Las Vegas from 14-17 July 2008.

Topics suitable for presentation include anything to do with drivers and driving, usability, in-vehicle interfaces, driver assistance systems, the use of nomadic and navigation devices.

The deadline for submitting abstracts is 15 October 2007. Full papers are due on 1st March 2008.

In the first instance please submit a title and presenters name to [email protected]

Details of the conference can be found at: http://www.aei2008.org/

Industrial design and...

Two upcoming presentations in San Francisco will discuss the relationships between industrial design and related disciplines:

• Interaction Design and ID: On the evening of Thursday, October 18th, IxDA San Francisco is hosting INTERSECTION: Where Interaction and Industrial Design Meet featuring case studies from Cooper, frog design, Motorola and IDEO.  The event coincides with Connecting '07 IDSA national conference and is "an evening of dialog between two closely related but often siloed fields: Industrial Design and Interaction Design. On October 18 at C|net, we will hear case studies from Cooper, frog design, Motorola and IDEO, highlighting the intersection point of the two disciplines and the ups and downs of collaboration."  For more information - http://gamma.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=21100 - no registration required.
• Service Design and ID: On Friday October 19th, at the Connecting '07 conference, Rob Tannen (disclosure: that's me) will be presenting Connecting Service Design and Industrial Design.  As the title implies, this will focus on the important role of industrial designers within the context of service design.  This will include using the conference experience itself as an example of service design analysis.  For more information/schedule -  http://www.idsa.org/PDFs/connecting07_schedule.pdf - IDSA conference registration required.

Stay tuned for information about these two presentations following the conference.

iZone Sticker Photos for Field Research

A little bit of back to the future...although discontinued, Polaroid produced a line of cameras called iZone which were an updated version of the classic Polaroid instant camera. 

The cool feature of iZone was the film.  The photo sizes were very small ,about 2" x 1" - the goal was fun, not fidelity.  There were several different  types of novelty film: one film had fortunes printed to go along with the photo.  But my personal favorite is the sticker film, which has an adhesive back.  This made it very well suited for field observations.  You could take a quick photo, stick in in a note book,  jot down your observation notes and then go on to the next observation (click on photo inset above).  Even today with digital cameras there's no quick and easy way to combine photos and written notes in such a compact package.

Since the camera (and film) have been discontinued, they are a little hard to come by, but available through ebay and similar sources.  However, most of the film is near or past expiration - but I am told, and can testify from personal experience, that the film works well past its expiration date.

We'll be using iZones and sticker film to capture observations at the upcoming IDSA Connecting '07 conference.

IDEO Human Factors Presenters at Connecting '07

The lead, HF-related presentation for the upcoming Connecting '07 conference will be Thursday, Oct 18th at 2PM:

Jane Fulton, Managing Partner and Co-Chief Creative Officer, IDEO and Aaron Sklar, Human Factors Designer, IDEO, will be presenting "Evolving Empathy: Deeper and Wider Design Impact".

 

The full conference schedule can be accessed as a PDF.

Upcoming Service Design Conference

The second Emergence conference will be held at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh) on September 7 -9.

From the conference site:

The second annual Emergence conference will explore how different design disciplines work together to create the tangible and intangible artifacts of service. We will address how to design services, consider how business can benefit from the increased value of a well-designed service, and continue to define this emerging design field.

The program includes speakers from Core77, Electronic Ink, IBM and IDEO, to name a few.

I'm planning to attend, so check back for a post-conference review.  Also stay tuned for an upcoming service design/industrial design connection.

-Rob Tannen