DESIGNING *for humans

Design Research Podcast and Article

Several new podcasts and articles related design research have become available:

• More Brain, Less Storm: How to think creatively about thinking creatively
  By Michael Flanagan of BresslerGroup - Flanagan discusses the value of creative thinking when it comes to research and innovation.  Often the best methods are not the most obvious or traditional.  For example, using a handwriting analyst to inform the design of a new pen.
• Design Research: What's New and What's Next (Podcast)
  Chris Rockwell and Marty Gage of Lextant - These experienced design researchers cover some of the latest trends in user research.  Note that this and other IDSA Podcasts are most easily accessed through iTunes.  Search for IDSA in the iTunes music store - the downloads are free and you can subscribe to the podcast series.

Stay tuned to the IDSA HF section for news on additional research and human factors podcasts. 

Design Research Quarterly - First Issue

The Design Research Society has published its first quarterly newsletter.  Of particular interest is the cover article by Liz Sanders, titled "Design Research 2006".  The article discussed the current research space in industry and academics, with a focus on the differences between the user-centered and the participatory research/design models.

Download design_research_quarterly_1.1 .pdf

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

Cooper-Hewitt People's Design Award

New York's Cooper-Hewitt museum has a number of design events going on:

• People's Design Award - You can view, nominate and vote (although it doesn't count) for your choice for the annual award.  Frankly, the site itself is poorly designed: it's not clear that there are many more award nominees than then six visible on the home page, and there's no place for a collective list. Still a nice summary of great designs from the past and present.
• National Design Week - October 15-21 2006 is National Design week, with free admission to the museum.  This week will include the announcement of the National Design Award winners.
• National Design Triennial - From December 2006 though July 2007, the museum will host "experimental designs and emerging ideas—including animation, new media, and fashion, robotics, architecture, product, medical, and graphic design—at the center of American culture from 2003 to 2006."

New User Interface Technologies

It was an eventful week in the field of user interface control design. Two new technologies were announced by industry leaders Synaptics and Logitech:

• Synaptics announced the Onyx phone concept - a concept platform for a new touchscreen technology.  Touchscreen control on mobile devices is nothing new, but the Onyx technology recognizes  more than just single touchpoint inputs.  It can identify natural behavioral patterns and gestures - for example the profile of a user's face as an indicator that the user is ready to answer an incoming call.  This can reduce interaction to basic gestures rather than deliberate controls.  It also makes the device extensible to a wide range of activities (e.g. phone, music, messaging, etc.).  It will be interesting to see who this potential is realized in the design of devices in the near future. 
• Logitech is launching a new computer mouse (MX Revolution).  The key innovation in this product is a new type of scroll-wheel that spins with less friction, along the lines of a flywheel.  This enables the user to scroll more quickly and with less effort compared to standard scroll wheel designs.  This change in function will require an adaptation in user behavior to adjust to this new method of scrolling.  As with the Synaptics Onyx, it will be interesting to observe the extent to which both product designers and consumers adapt to the potential benefits (and drawbacks) of new human-computer interaction technology.

New York Times Article on Field Resarch

"Get out of That Rut and Into the Shower" discusses the business advantages of conducting field research to understand customer experiences and product usage.  The article emphasizes the value of field observation over traditional marketing methods (e.g. focus groups) for identifying unexpected opportunities for innovation.  Design firm Continuum's research on how people take showers is cited as an award-winning example.

Innovation: Design Research

The Summer 2006 issue of the IDSA quarterly, Innovation, has just been published.  This issue is of particular interest because it features eight articles representing a range of perspectives on design and user research.  Three articles of particular interest for Human Factors advocates:

• Digital Ethnography Sparking Brilliant Innovation - Darrel Rhea, IDSA and Lisa Leckie - Discusses the role of digital consumer technology as a means to for users to capture and deliver self-report research from the field.
• The Integration of Industrial Design and Human Factors Bricks & Mortar - Barry H. Beith, PhD and Joseph Jasinski, IDSA - Provides a discussion of how Industrial Designers and Human Factors experts can work together effectively.
• The Future of User Research Ubiquitous Computing - Rob Tannen, PhD, IDSA - Posits that many of the constraints of current research methods may be overcome through the development of product usage measurement technology.  You may download Tannen's artice:  innovation_tannen.pdf.

Note - IDSA typically publishes a few of these articles online.  The journal site has not been updated as of this posting (it still features the Spring 2006 issue), but when the Summer issue is posted, we will post a blog entry with the specific links.

BusinessWeek Innovation Quarterly

BusinessWeek has published the first quarterly section on Innovation.  Content includes a focus on user research, design and creativity.  Much of it is geared towards managers and executives, versus technologists or field researchers - its about increasing awareness and visibility.  Most notable is an article about Patrick Whitney of the IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. The article discusses the importance of design skills in the context of business and the value of user research and prototyping in the achieving successful products.

Don Norman Interview on Radio Times

Don Norman was interviewed last week on Radio Times (a Philadelphia-based public radio show).  You can access the audio through the Radio Times Web site (search for "Don Norman") or via Podcast at the iTunes music store.

Standard Don Norman fare: what's wrong with products and engineers, how things are changing for the better, etc.

Stephen Wilcox gets Sirius with the Human Factors Society

The April issue of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Bulletin has a cover story interview with Stephen Wilcox.  Stephen, who is the chair of the IDSA Human Factors section, discusses the design of the user interface for Sirius radio products.

The interview can be accessed through the following link:

http://www.hfes.org/web/BulletinPdf/0406bulletin.pdf

Anachronistic Design

Designer Greg Prichard has some fascinating concepts on his site, including an envisioned iPod-like music player.  Prichard's Digiphonic Music Player addresses the question - what if digital technology had been invented 50 years ago?  How would it be designed, packaged and marketed?  It even includes a realistic account of the inventors and how the "product" was created.

Product Complexity and Impatience

A researcher (listen here) reports that Americans spend about 20 minutes learning how to use an electronics product before giving up.

Top Industrial Design Schools

The top rated undergraduate programs in industrial design by the 2006 DesignIntelligence rankings:

Undergraduate Industrial Design Programs

• Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, Calif.)
• University of Cincinnati - http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.asp?id=3443
• Pratt Institute (New York City)
• College for Creative Studies (Detroit) (tied with Rhode Island School of Design)
• Carnegie Mellon University
• Cleveland Institute of Art
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Syracuse University
• California College of the Arts

As a graduate student in Human Factors at the University of Cincinnati I took classes in the industrial design program - although at the time it was not a large part of the ID curicullum.  I wonder how many of these top schools give human factors and design research significant emphasis in their required coursework?

Tops in Google Blog Search

We're proud to see that we're the first listing under the google blog search for the term "human factors" (with or without quotes).

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.

Human Factors Society Site Redesign

The Human Factors & Ergonomics Society Web site was recently redesigned.  This was a much needed improvement since the previous version was not well-organized or navigate.  I've asked HFES whether they've conducted usability testing during the site redesign...will let you know what I find out.  I certainly couldn't find anything on the site about it.

Blogs as Reference and Research Tools

I'm currently gathering data (albeit, informally) for research on how industrial designers use blogs - specifically around learning about design research.  I'm also interested in hearing whether anyone has directly used blogs as a design research tool - for example, in place of traditional journals.

I'm collecting input via the Core77 boards and I'm also planning on launching a brief survey to HF section within IDSA.  I'll post the findings here, but my the primary purpose behind this is for a presentation on blogs (see p. 9) that I'll be making at the IDSA conference on August 26th.

Emerging Technologies in User Research

Often user and design research is focused on developing new technologies and products, but the role of technology in such research is not given a lot of attention.

Rob Tannen maintains a site/blog with a focus on emerging technologies for use in user and design research.  The emphasis is primarily on software and human-computer interaction, but occasionally addresses product design as well.

Design Research Discussion Board

The Core77 Boards site has a discussion forum on Design Research, that currently features a thread on the future of design research methodologies.   Worth taking a look at and making a contribution.

Trends in Design Technology and Issues

Successful designers will need to continue integrating technological, business and social requirements as design plays a role in more areas of society.

The UK Design Council has identified four key trends that will impact design, and provides link to related resources:

• Miniaturization
• Digitization
• Smart Materials
• Pervasive Computing

The common theme of these areas is the potential to design products with greater capabilities, flexibility and functionality than every before.

Related, are emerging design issues:

• Sustainable design
• Social responsibility
• Service design
• Experience design