Appliance Design - September 2007 - (Page 46) INDUSTRIAL DESIGN Understand the USER Natural position of hand when closing door. Fig. 1. Photocopy machine where the interlock switch for the access door is far from the point where force is applied to close the door. Interlock switch behind door. Hinge side. The right research can steer designers away from traps. D by stan caplan Stan Caplan is president of Usability Associates, Rochester, N.Y. 46 applianceDESIGN September 2007 igital technology gives designers the opportunity to incorporate all kinds of new features into today’s appliances, but high technology can be a double-edged sword. Simply because they can, designers often create exotic, multifunctional devices with bells and whistles galore in an effort to snare more customers by creating a product with more perceived value. But many users become frustrated by the resultant complexity of operation. The problem is this: companies are trying to market makeable appliances when instead they should be making marketable appliances. The latter notion means using the available technology to give customers the functionality they need, but presenting that functionality to them in a way that is easy to use. And that can be much more challenging for the product designer. But that challenge can be met by letting user-focus be an integral part of the product development process and incorporating user-centered design. UCD recognizes that the intended output of a product can’t be achieved without the actions of a person. The product is a subsystem of the larger sys- tem that also includes the user and the usage environment. Committing to UCD requires designers to elevate the importance of users to the success of the system and to change some of their perceptions about the users. In the many years that I have worked with design engineers on various projects, I have often heard comments suggesting that a particular attitude had trapped them into a dysfunctional design mode. But the design engineer can escape from each of these traps by adopting a more flexible approach to the issues behind the traps. Issue 1. User behavior predictability. The trap: Assuming users will always do what they are supposed to do. Human behavior is more variable than machine or software behavior. That is one reason it is the weak link in the product-person-environment system. Designers need to anticipate erroneous actions of users and then either design to prevent those actions from happening or design to mitigate the consequences of those actions to provide users with a graceful recovery from the mistake. Example: For safety reasons, opening an www.applianceDESIGN.com http://www.appliancedesign.com
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