DESIGNING *for humans

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.
  
  
  
  
  

Taxonomy of Physical Interactions

In a previous post I discussed the (disappearing) distinction between designing interfaces that primarily support physical interaction, and those that support cognitive interaction.  But this is not a black and white differentiation, so I thought it would be useful to describe a continuum of physical interaction in user interfaces.

Note that I am focusing on willfully or intentionally controlled interfaces.  There are examples, arguably, of involuntary interfaces - for instance, an autopilot function that activates if a pilot becomes disabled - but I'll table those interesting cases for a later discussion.

Continuum of Physical Interfaces

A continuum of physical interaction would range at one end from non-movement to that which requires significant, complex body movement.  At the first extreme we could include theoretical telepathic control, where no visible physical interaction is evident.  As we move away from that end of the spectrum we have existing and emerging neuroergonomic interfaces that rely on measurement of electrical potentials, cerebral blood flow, and MRI imagery other as triggers for action. 

The next step towards physical interaction are devices that measure or track relatively small motor movements and translate them into interface actions.  For example, Emotiv System's forthcoming Epoc device can translate facial muscle movement into expressions for online avatars. Eye tracking systems, already commonplace in supporting the physically disabled, track eye movements in place of mouse/keyboard controllers.

From here we move to relatively simple, ubiquitous traditional physical interaction controllers - buttons, keyboards, knobs, switches, levers - the stuff of mechanical and electro-mechanical devices that designers have been working with for years.  These controllers are typically binary (on/off), or at least incremental (having multiple, discrete states).  Most existing touch screen interfaces, such as bank ATMs, would fall under this category.

We then go from discrete, to continuous controllers, enabling multiple actions and greater flexibility.  The computer mouse was a breakthrough for human-computer interaction in this context as it supports various types of interaction and interfacing from a single control device.  In fact, while keys and buttons are typically designed with a specific function in mind, the mouse provided the opportunity for new user interfaces to be created for defining its functions.  Gestural interfaces, from multi-touch screen to the Wii are also examples of this flexible, "open" physical interaction category.  These are the "new "interaction devices that are opening up new possibilities for interaction designers.

We might imagine a Minority Report based interface as the ultimate extreme at the far end of the physical interaction spectrum, but as pictured in the video above, it is only limited to gestural hand movements.  What about more complex bodily interactions combining other limbs, postural movement and line-of-sight?  This is still largely unexplored territory might be best understood by observing how we use our bodies in the most dynamic and complex ways.  Musicians, athletes and dancers may be a more valuable source for developing future physical interaction ideas than science fiction.

A Metric for Physical Interface Complexity

Note that the continuum I described above, while not by any means arbitrary, was not based on a well-defined metric that quantified greater or less physical complexity.  If we were to do so, degrees of freedom would be an appropriate place to start.  A degree of freedom can be defined as any independent direction in which movement is possible.  A human finger has four degrees of freedom, made up of the extension/flexion of the three joints, as well as side-to-side movement.  Combining the individual degrees of freedom of the four fingers, thumb and wrist gives the hand 26 degrees of freedom.

Hypothetically, we could apply this to the entire human body to specify the maximum level of complexity for any single physical interaction, or sequence of interactions.  The total degrees of freedom for a fully functioning human is 1380.  In theory, we could go back to any physical interaction and quantify the (minimum) amount of movement required to come up with relative complexity measures.  But it actually gets more challenging as complexity is more than just the sum of the degrees of freedom, and would depend on the particular combination of movements, etc.  In other words, it's an interesting idea, but requires a lot more thought to pursue practically.

Mapping Physical Interaction Inputs to Outputs

Another important consideration is the relationship between physical inputs and the associated outputs in a user interface system.  Current discussion of gestural interfaces is primarily focused on using physical interaction to control virtual objects - a way to make the digital world more tangible.  But physical interaction interfaces can also be used to control physical systems, and not just in the literal sense.

Intuitive Surgical's da Vinci surgical systemsrepresent the leading edge of commercialized physical interaction devices.  As depicted in the video, the systems "translate and filter" a surgeon's precision hand motions into physical motions of surgical robot manipulators.  This requires a two-way physical interaction where the user not only provides physical output, but receives haptic input such as resistance to force.  So it's actually a physical-to virtual-to physical loop.

A Starting Point for Defining Physical Interactions in User Interfaces

While this is just a preliminary discussion, there are threads towards developing a taxonomy of physical interaction types:

• There is the complexity of the physical movement, characterized by the number and type of degrees of freedom involved.

• The output of the physical interaction, resulting in either virtual actions, physical actions or a combination.
• The directionality of the interaction: either one way from user to system, or bi-directional between user and interface.

Physical Interaction & The Future of User Interface Design

We are on the cusp of a significant trend in product design and design methodology, where the longstanding divide between physical and cognitive modes of interaction will disappear.  What do I mean by this? 

Consider, in general terms the distinction between primarily physical human-artifact interactions, and those that are primarily cognitive in nature. 

Physical artifacts are those whose primary design intent is the mechanical transportation or transformation of matter. Think automobiles, appliances, tools, basically the main focus of industrial design in the last century. Such products are ideally designed around human anthropometric and ergonomic principles to maximize efficiency, effectiveness and safety. Often these artifacts require significant experience to develop proficiency or “muscle memory”, and those who achieve a high level of skill may be considered craftsmen, or even athletes.

Compare this to cognitive artifacts that essentially store and transmit information – books, radios, telephones, wristwatches, personal computers and so on.  While these artifacts all intrinsically require physical interaction, it is typically trivial in its nature - it requires relatively limited manual dexterity to turn a page, click a mouse, press a button. The majority of design focus is on the user interface and its visual display of information – the “heavy lifting” with these artifacts takes place in the head of the user, so design for the mind, not the body, takes precedence.

 

So we have largely been designing two, co-existing, but separate types of products: those that utilize the complex mechanics of the body to transform matter, and those that accommodate capabilities of the mind for processing information.  Products that overlap these two worlds, that is, which take advantage of complex physical interactions to drive information processing, are few and far between.  The abacus the telegraph, and perhaps texting, comes to mind.  Musical instruments play an interesting role in this context where technical sophisticated body control is applied to the creation of sound, but even this is for artistic or entertainment purposes, rather than concerning the analysis of information in the scientific or business sense.

But now, we are starting to see the emergence of products that hint at using the mechanics of the body to interact with complex information.   For example Jeff Han’s multi-touch, interactive data wall, and virtual reality simulations that allow scientists to “feel” the forces between molecules.  But even these interfaces are only scratching the surface of what is possible from a physical interaction point-of-view.  Getting to this point has taken a long time because it is challenging to track and quantify the multiple degrees of freedom of movement of the body.  But it is also the result of our divided design processes, where physical interactions and cognitive interactions have traditionally been designed by different people with different expertise, at different times.

Moreover, such divided design processes are themselves the result of 20^th century psychology that treats humans as information processing machines.  As a consequence we think of human activity as comprised of discrete, sequential steps of thinking and then acting – I see something, then I reach for it.  In other words, a built-in division between cognitive interaction and physical interaction.  As a result it’s easy to see why we divide the world the way we do.

But there are alternative perspectives on human behavior, in particular the ecological psychologyy of J.J. Gibson.   Gibson coined the term “affordances” which is (mis) used and abused by interaction designers today.  But affordances, the relationships between people (or other organisms) and artifacts, are just a part of a larger “perception-action” framework.  In this view, perceiving or sensing information is a physical behavior itself, not just a means to drive a subsequent physical action.  Likewise, physical behavior drives perception – the two are connected, not divided, resulting in a perception-action loop. 

The implications of this for product design are subtle, but important.  Taking into account the physical interactions someone takes to acquire information is a useful for understanding and determining what and how to display information.  For example, rather than designing products where all information is accessed from a single point, information may be distributed across locations, where the location itself is informative above and beyond the content.  We see this emerging with augmented reality applications, where the user’s particular activity, such as walking to a particular location in a city, provides location-specific information. The format and content may be driven by variables such as the person’s posture and gait (e.g. in a hurry or browsing), direction of approach, and of course their physical characteristics such as eye height and reach.

To get to the point where we can design systems to take advantage of complex physical  interactions will require an taking a new look at how the fields of kinesthetics,  anthropometrics and optical flow , relate to interface design.  These fields will be as important to designers as information architecture and form giving are today.

As a starting point, I've been exploring the role of ergonomics in contemporary interface design, to better relate the divided fields of physical and cognitive product design.

 

 

 

Review - Wrench in the System

Harold Hambrose's Wrench in the System is a highly readable and cogent perspective on the lack of effective design in business software, in the spirit of Alan Cooper's The Inmates are Running the Asylum.

Hambrose, founder of user interface consulting firm Electronic Ink, essentially lived through and helped lead the growth of user-centered design over the past 20 years, and much of the book is directly drawn from his professional experiences {Disclaimer: I formerly worked for Hambrose as Director of Human Factors at Electronic Ink].

Wrench in the System combines personal narrative, case studies and historical perspective to point out that the creation of business software does not parallel the successful design processes in other industries such as architecture and product design:

"In the race to deploy new information technology, businesses and software developers often have stumbled because they have ignored traditional methods of product development and have seriously miscalculated the risks of developing software without pausing to find out more about how this new technology will be used.  The information technology industry, still in its adolescence, has been in too much of a rush to stop and tie its shoelaces." 

The book is targeted at business decision makers - CIOs and CEOs, who have the power to demand usable software, but lack the awareness of why it matters.  The focus is more specifically on enterprise software - large scale, technology driven, million dollar software systems that are notoriously challenging to use and difficult to change.  Hambrose frequently picks on SAP, both explicitly and implicitly - the book even includes a mini-fable called "The Emperor's New Enterprise System".

The majority of Wrench is spent defining the problem with examples from healthcare, financial services, energy, etc.  A reader who is already well versed in user-centered design will likely find these examples familiar, and somewhat repetitive.  But where Hambrose excels is in articulating the value and impact of design to business, for example:

"It's not a lack of technical know-how or business expertise or even a shortage of time or money that accounts for software's failure to provide the information we need.  The source of most of the trouble is a fundamental conflict between human beings and their machines, a conflict that causes profound misunderstanding"

The book itself, with clear typography and substantive paper stock, exemplifies user-centered design, as well as the still evident value of paper over electronic books.  It should benefit those sleepy business decision makers who clearly still need it, but it's language and stories will also benefit user-centered design practicioners who can apply its lessons to their own internal and external design sales challenges.

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.

Simplexity and Product Design

Jeffrey Kluger's Simplexity is a book full of interesting, but poorly inter-related ideas.  Kluger covers a range of topics - politics, sports, linguistics - and summarizes what some of the leading thinkers have discovered about the underlying factors that influence complexity in behavior. 

Simplexity is at its best when it focus on the general theories and definitions around the connection between simplicity and complexity.  For example, the simplest systems are either inert (like a lump of carbon) or highly chaotic (a room full of gas molecules).  Complexity emerges when systems fall between the highly static and the highly dynamic - like an organism.  Unfortunately, these types of graspable principles are not carried out through the book.  I found myself wondering whether Kluger had used the theme of simplicity/complexity as a convenient thread to assemble of number of disparate, but individually interesting ideas.

There is chapter on product design - "Why are your cell phone and camera so absurdly complicated?".  As in other chapters, the leading experts in the field - in this case primarily Donald Norman, Alan Cooper and John Maeda - provide commentary on the balance of complexity.  Given this group of experts, its not surprising that a good deal of time is spent on blaming engineers and technology for failing to effectively account for the capabilities of the end-user: "the fault lies less with those designers themselves than with the nature of the entire industry."

The chapter points out that technology shifts have caused the rapid rise in complexity and poor usability.  For example, the replacement of visible knobs and dials on an old television set with invisible, hidden states that are not immediately accessible to the user.  The solution is not to move away from complexity, but to make the complexity hidden from the user.  With the obligatory iPod reference:

"In some ways, this is anything but simplicity; it's a very complicated program doing very complicated work.  But it's doing it all in the background and simply presenting you with the functional result." "Your eyes and hand are the front ends of the bodily system.  The screen and scroll pad are the front ends of the iPod."

2009 ID Magazine Annual Review

Call me psychic if you wish, but three consumer products that I discussed as valuable user research tools have won awards in the 2009 I.D. Magazine Annual Review:

• The Fitbit Tracker, which I discussed as a system for measuring physical behavior and movement.  This device has been getting a lot of press lately, so maybe that means it will be launched shortly.  When I first discussed the Fitbit last September it was scheduled for a Jan '09 launch.  The web site now says "early spring", so don't hold your breath.  I placed an order months ago and have not heard a thing...very similar to what happened with the LiveScribe Pen.

• And speaking of the LiveScribe Pulse Smartpen(as it's properly named), it was given recognition by the I.D. jurors despite the observations that "it could have been more beautifully integrated" and "It's not pretty, but it works very well."  Hmmm...isn't this a design review?  From personal experience, it does work very well, but it has fatal design and usability flaws, including an uncanny tendency to roll off the table.

• Lastly, I covered the Flip Mino digital video recorder as one of several examples of effective, simple design in my article keep it simple, stupid.

Clearly a coincidence as I had no involvement with the Annual Review this year - although after serving as a juror last year I wrote some practical suggestions for future submitters.

keep it simple, stupid - online version available

My article for Barclay's 360 corporate magazine on simplicity, clarity and complexity in business is finally available in a slick, online magazine format.  You can view and print portions of the entire issue.

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.

Ergonomics of Typography

While I've never had any formal education on typography (or perhaps, because of that absence), I've always had a great amount of respect and admiration for the discipline.  And just as a skilled driver can win a race without understanding the physics of internal combustion engines, the vast majority of us can write effectively without comprehending the physical details of the particular letters we are assembling.

But my interest in typography has recently grown due to my exposure to two leading practitioners.  Michael Beirut and Oded Ezer are very different kinds of designers.  Beirut, who I enjoyed seeing lecture a few weeks ago at a Philadelphia AIGA event, is an expert at applying typography to design projects.  His encyclopedic knowledge of type history can be seen in this video from Atlantic Magazine:

On the other hand, Oded Ezer is a true typographer who creates letter forms.  An Israeli, he works primarily in Hebrew type, both in applied and experimental forms.  I am currently reading Ezer's just-published The Typographer's Guide to the Galaxy, a visual review of Ezer's body of work ranging from relatively simple and direct treatments (like the image at the top of this post), to unconventional 3D treatments of letters and "Typospermatoids" (pictured below) - a hypothetical half sperm/half letter, "whose typographic information has been implanted into their DNA."  For more information, see Ezer's web site.

This emphasis and exposure to typography has caused me to re-evaluate my own perspective on the field.  For the usability or human factors practitioner, typography is generally considered in very functional terms.  Whether it's road signs on a highway, warning labels on medication or data captions in a software application, the focus is on the appropriate visual clarity, legibility and structural hierarchy.

But Ezer's unconventional, even anthropomorphic treatment of typography has me thinking of letters as actors with characteristics, rather than inert symbols.  More specifically, I realized that some of the basic principles of ergonomics could be mapped to typographical elements, and that typography and anthropometry (the study of human body measurements) are curiously related, at least metaphorically.

The fundamental principle of anthropometrics is that although people need to conduct the same types of behaviors and tasks, they vary greatly in their physical characteristics.  The same is true for different type faces - while they vary greatly in their physical characteristics and appearance, each must represent and allow the assembly of the same sets of characters into words.  That is, any font (English font, more specifically), is a variation on representing the 26 letters of the alphabet, etc.

But a more striking similarity between ergonomics and typography arises when one considers the rules that govern fit.  In my series on Ergonomics for Interaction Designers (part 3), I discuss the four key factors - reach, clearance, posture and strength.  These four inputs can be applied to assess the ergonomic fit of any person in any context.  But they are also metaphorically comparable for assessing the characteristics of a type:

• Reach can refer to the size of the typeface.  For example a taller type would have a greater "reach" or expanse than a condensed one.
• Clearance is physical space, or in the case of type, white-space.  A type with more space around the letters has greater clearance.
• Posture is the degree of alignment, such that a very slanted type would have a greater postural deviation than a a more linear type.
• Strength is the visible impact of the type as conveyed by the contrast of line thickness and boldness.

As a basic example, we can visually compare Arial Black with an italicized version of Times New Roman.  While both examples are at the same type size (13 pt), Arial Black clearly has greater reach and strength, while Times New Roman has a slanted posture.

Perhaps an interesting mental exercise, but anything more to it?  I've just begun to examine this interrelationship, but I think there may be inspiration here for typographers.  Gaining an understanding of human physical characteristics, and how they vary, could influence the design and application of typography, not for functional purposes as much as creative and exploratory endeavors.  Conversely, my interest in typography may lead to new ideas for addressing ergonomic issues - but if not, I will have gained a better understanding of an intriguing, ubiquitous design niche.`

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).

Human Factors Professionals are Poor Designers

The Spring 09 Newsletter of the Product Design Technical Group of HFES starts off with an editorial by group chair Steve Belz, which articulates a cliche, but accurate situation:

"…Human Factors professionals, as a discipline, are remarkably poor designers.

 

There, I said it – but before you tune me out, please hear me out. I would love to be wrong, but I believe the evidence suggests otherwise...

 

Even the most forward thinking graduate programs fail when compared against our graphical and industrial design colleagues. The blank page is our profession’s Achilles heel. Making something from nothing and developing distinctly differentiated design alternatives – distinct from the status quo and from each other – is tremendously challenging for many in our profession. Indeed, I have met only a handful of Human Factors professionals who are truly talented in this area.

 

By contrast, Human Factors professionals tend to excel in evaluating design, an area which these very same colleagues struggle. Turn us loose on an existingng design and we become masterful in our ability to articulate potential advantages and disadvantages of a particular design or set of designs."

Steve concludes his editorial by soliciting suggestions that would lead to the improvement of design output from human factors professionals. 

I am in 100% agreement with Steve, and can speak from personal experience - just take a look at any random presentations pulled from a Human Factors & Ergonomics Society conference and compare them to typical presentations from AIGA, IDSA, (fill in your design organization conference here).  While one would expect an inherently higher level of design quality such organizations, this is more than a quantitative difference, it is a qualitative one.  Beyond a better use of typography, graphics and layout, there is a qualitative gap betweenexpectations at technical conferences (like HFES) and design conferences.

Traditionally, human factors conference audiences don't expect much from visual communication - they expect to see data, statistics and references - the visual equivalent of the primary product of human factors professionals, the technical report.  Whereas designers create designs as their outputs, and therefore treat all of their work, whether presentations or products, accordingly.

There is a simple solution to this for human factors professionals.  One that will make their presentations stand out as elegant, entertaining and engaging.  Do what I do and don't create  presentation on your own - work with a skilled designer who has the right set of skills and expectations to achieve quality results.

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.

Market Research Primer for Designers

 

Brianna Sylver's article on Core77 is Spend it Wisely: A Market Research Primer for Designers.  It comparatively summarizes key user research methods (e.g. ethnography, focus groups, surveys, etc) in terms of application, cost and time:

 "sufficient time for analysis needs to be given to ethnographic-based initiatives. Fieldwork is a bit messy, as the protocols for ethnographic research are largely non-directed and unscripted. So it's only in the analysis of that data that you uncover the real nuggets of information that offer the AHA!"

Yes, very basic, but it's a primer after all.

 

Asterisks *User Research Technology Edition

Here's a quick rundown of some recent news & tools related to user research technologies:

• MIT Technology Review summarizes some emerging technologies from CHI 2009, including eye-tracking goggles (pictured above).    
• CNET has a comparative review of the top 5 iPod voice recording accessories.   
• GuapoVideo, an online video editing/sharing tool was first introduced at the IDSA Connecting conference in San Francisco, has been released.  
• Elizabeth Bacon has posted a Google spreadsheet of online/remote testing software tools.  This is a work-in-progress, but already includes 17 different tools.

Applying Evidence-Based Design to Medical Product Design

What is Evidence-Based Design?

The medical field is a useful resource for consideration by product researchers and designers. The combination of rigorous, but varied procedures, and focus on measurable outcomes lends itself to efficient and effective practices.  For instance, a few weeks ago I discussed the success of checklists in surgical contexts and their potential application as a format for design recommendations & guidelines.

Evidence-based design (EBD) is another important methodology that stems, not directly from the medical field, but from architecture and the design of healthcare environments.  While one might think that any design process should be, or at least could be, based on evidence, the term "evidence-based design" is specific to the "process of basing decisions about the built environment on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes." 

The goals and methods of EBD should be quite familiar to anyone experienced with the scientific method, but because the approach accounts for qualitative as well as quantitative research and data analysis, it is highly relevant to user research in product design.  The basic approach of EBD includes the following: 

• Reviewing the existing body of research literature to determine relevant findings and recommendations
• Prioritizing and balancing referenced findings with primary data gathered from site visits, subject matter experts and stakeholders
• Hypothesizing about the potential outcomes of design decisions, and then tracking those outcomes following design implementation

A simple example in the context of a healthcare environment design (e.g. a new outpatient clinic), might begin with a review of published research on outpatient clinic design as well as reviewing decisions made on similar past projects.  The Center for Health Design provides references to extensive resources for evidence-based design.  Then conducting interviews with the staff (e.g. doctors, nurses, administrators) and consumers (e.g. patients, family members).  The results from this research would drive the design decisions - for example, to  provide sufficient collaborative working space in the waiting room for patients and their families.  Outcome factors, such as patient satisfaction ratings and waiting time, would also be established and subsequently measured.

Evidence-Based Design and Qualitative Data

One reason I consider EBD valuable to product designers is that the EBD research approach accounts for many of the methodological concerns that arise in qualitative, small-sample research. Evidence-based design  makes the valuable point of considering any research method from the perspectives of both objectivity and context.  That is, the most objective, typically quantitative methods, such as controlled laboratory studies or surveys, also tend to be the most removed from the actual design context.  They provide scientific credibility, but may not account for the specifics of the particular situation.  

On the other hand, interviews and ethnographic observation, while qualitative, can be performed contextually, and provide deeper detail and relevance, albiet with less scientific rigor.  EBD recommends a balance of both kinds of research to provide the best data set, and also discusses how to blend the two approaches - for example gathering quantitative data about patient movement while conducting observational research.

Similarly, EBD discusses how to handle apparently conflicting or contradictory research findings.  Such situations are an opportunity to examine the root causes of the differences - for example did two similar studies provide contrasting results due to differences in the populations studied, or the particulars of data collection? 

In other words, the EBD research approach is a realistic and pragmatic one.  The mindset of gathering different types of data from different sources and then looking at the findings across the data sources is comparable to the triangulation approach that I employ in product design research.

Evidence-Based Design Vs. User-Centered Design

Presumably any product or interface design practitioner who has read this far would be wondering how evidence-based design relates to user-centered design.  In both methodologies, the goals are very similar - apply appropriate design principles to create effective, usable results.  And while there is overlap between the two fields, their are also significant differences in their details.  In fact, there are at least two critical differences between how evidence-based and user-centered design are practiced:

• Published Research - In EBD, there is a focused effort to document the best practices for healthcare environment design via journals, such as Healthcare Environments Research & Design Journal (HERD).  In comparison, product design is a much broader, diverse field, and while there are publications and conferences, it is challenging to find focused sources around the effective design of a specific type of product, versus general guidelines for product design (e.g. ergonomics, human-computer interaction guidelines).
• Outcomes Measurement - A critical goal for EBD is the definition and measurement plan for evaluating the outcomes of the design.  These are often based on clinical results and patient/staff satisfaction.  Direct outcomes measurements is rarely a part of any user-centered design process.  In product design, outcomes may be estimated prior to implementation through usability testing (an activity seemingly not given significant attention in EBD), and occasionally via post-launch evaluations.

Adapting Evidence-Based Design Methods to Product Design

It's a given that increasing the integration of published research and outcomes measurement would benefit the product design field.  But I expect the reality of that will vary greatly with the particular types of products.  Consumer-focused areas like electronics and computers will likely remain relatively closed for competitive reasons. 

Medical product design would be an appropriate area to apply EBD methods.  It already has the obvious connection with the medical field, and with that come some of the necessary resources.  For instance, both ergonomic/human factors periodicals (example here) as well as specialized medical journals (example here) address the effectiveness of tools for the growing field of tool design for laparoscopic surgery.  These articles address the effectiveness of tools from both the design and clinical outcome perspective, although require some learning & effort to understand the specialized vocabularies.

But finding appropriate reference information is only half the story.  Research is a cyclical process where those taking guidance from previous research must disseminate their own findings.  This may be done formally, through the journals and conferences, or informally via blogging or trade group meetings.  For example, the interaction designers association, while focused on interface design, is a great model of an online community sharing best practices and guidance for design on an as-needed basis.  This bottom-up information distribution is also see in social/professional networking sites such as the Medical Devices Group on LinkedIn.

More generally, the thoughtful planning and balancing of qualitative and quantitative methods advocated for in evidence-based design may be the strongest takeaway for product designers. 

In the future, I expect that environmental designers/architects and product designers will work more closely in shaping the entire user experience. In such an integrated approach essentially every detail of the healthcare provider's and patient's experience will be considered - from the layout of the room to the ergonomics of a medical instruments to the usability of healthcare information systems - rather than designed as independent objects that must co-exist within the same system.

For more information on Evidence-Based Design, I highly recommend the succinct and readable Practitioner's Guide to Evidence-Based Design (pictured above).

Canine Ergonomics

 

Canine Ergonomics: The Science of Working Dogs, is due out later this month from CRC press and was written by William Helton (who was, coincidentally, a classmate of mine in grad school).  The book is an attempt at bringing disparate perspectives together into a definition of canine ergonomics, with topics including the role of dogs in mine detection, search and rescue and assisting people with disabilities.

Also see the related interview, Canine Factors & Human Factors: An Opportunity for Collaboration?, from the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society.

Pre-Cursors: Products That Foreshadowed Web 2.0

 

Like the adage about pornography, a precise definition of "Web 2.0" is elusive, but I know it when I see it.  Back in 2005, Tim O'Reilly (of the eponymous media publishing company) wrote a comprehensive overview of What is Web 2.0.  From the end-users perspective, 2.0's key attributes, O'Reilly presciently suggested, include "harnessing collective intelligence" (think Wikipedia) and "rich user experiences" (think YouTube).

I would add that the most powerful and defining characteristics of Web 2.0 applications are the real-time (or near real-time) distribution and sharing of individual experiences.  Whether its videos, photos, words or music, the high-velocity growth of services like Flickr, Twitter and Facebook are centered around the capability of taking the uniqueness of one person's life, sharing it with others, and vice-versa.

The scale and diversity of these applications is unprecedented, but, of course, the use of technology to connect people is not.  In fact, there's a strong case that the  course of technological development over the past two-hundred years - railroads, telegrams, radio, telephone, TV, air travel, mobile phones, the Internet - has been driven by the goal of connecting people, for economic and social benefit.

There's a qualitative difference between the massive, grand-scale innovations of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the bottom-up affect of today's many smaller-scale efforts to connect people.  But, the emergence of everyday technologies to connect people in a simple, one-on-one manner is not unique - and played a significant part in the lives of many of us in the 35 and older crowd.  I recently had the opportunity to re-examine some of the popular technology products from my childhood in the 1970s and 1980s, as a contributing commentator for William Lidwell's forthcoming Deconstructing Product Design.  It was during this period of writing that I recognized parallels between the popular technologies of 25+ years ago, and the digital social networking tools of today: 

 

    Sharing and Tagging Photos - The Polaroid Instant Camera

My father was an amateur photographer.  He had built out a good part of our Brooklyn basement into a darkroom for developing film (toxic chemicals, rubber gloves) and owned numerous high-end contemporary and antique cameras.  But he still saw the value in purchasing a Polaroid SX-70.  Unlike predecessor "instant" cameras, the Polaroid was a true SLR, and the film development process was not only quick, but automatic.  The photographer did not have to do anything to develop the ejected film (e.g. tearing, shaking, etc).  This, in conjunction with the suspense of watching the transition from green blobs to colorful images, made it ideal for kids to use.

The ability to take pictures and then quickly see the results increased the informality around photography that we take for granted with digital cameras and camera phones today.  Rather than waiting days or weeks to finish the film roll, drop it off for processing and then await the opening of the photos (incidentally, a suspenseful ritual that has been lost), Polaroid photographers could share photos instantly (more or less).  The casual nature of this photography led to photographing multiple takes, or images of the same event to get slightly different perspectives and to create copies to give to people who shared in the moment.

 

This share-ability characteristic alone is noteworthy, but it was the thoughtful design features of the entire system that really fostered interpersonal communication.  For example, the picture format included a sizable tab, a "whitespace" if you will,  that was typically used to write brief descriptive or entertaining notes about the photo.  And the camera was not just portable, but collapsible.   In fact, the collapsed SX-70 (above) looks strikingly similar to a modern smart phone, with the viewfinder housing resembling a belt-clip.

 

 

 

Sharing Music and Playlists - The Sony Walkman

It may seem strange to discuss the Walkmanas an example of technology connecting people.  After all, it is  the grandfatherly symbol of escapist entertainment, separating the listener from the outside world and people.  But that didn't seem to be the intent in the original model, with two headphone jacks for shared listening experiences and a muting function to allow conversation.  Similarly, Andreas Pavel who invented the Walkman’s predecessor, the Sterobelt, saw his invention as a "means to multiply the aesthetic potential of any situation”, rather than dividing the listener from reality.

If anything it is the more recent developments of digital rights management that have made iPods and other Walkman descendants into  more solitary devices.  The power of the Walkman, and its competitors, was the medium - the audio cassette, which empowered anyone to create their own music mixes (aka playlists) from their collection of records, tapes, and eventually CDs.  The Walkman then became the medium for tape-sharing musical preferences and discoveries.  And again a small amount of whitespace allowed for descriptive tagging, decoration or at least identification.

 

In retrospect, it's easy to see how these popular technologies spread the memes of sharing, and were I clairvoyant, I would prognosticate on how some of our modern, emerging technologies will foreshadow our future activities.  For example, perhaps gestural interfaces will enable the sharing of physical interactions the same way now can with visual and auditory information.  Or future generations will be able to share artifacts and memories from their entire past lives as easily as we can email a photo.  Only time will tell, but my advice to designers of these to-be-determined technologies is simple...make sure to leave room for some whitespace.

Product Ergonomics in Metropolis

The March issue of Metropolis is focused on products, with the theme of Good Design.  And it contains several articles with a specific focus on ergonomics.  Niels Diffrient (illustrated above) presents what might be read as a self-contradicting design process, in The Real Driver.  On the one hand he posits a master-of-the-universe expertise as a best practice over contextual research:

"if you know what people do, how they do things, what their reactions are—and if you can measure all this—then you have a foundation reference for what they could use or want. You don’t have to go out and ask them, or track previous sales records, or determine what products are selling well."

On the other hand, the result of this approach is a chair that was "ten years in the making—I realized that people needed more comfort with less complication. By that, I mean fewer but­tons, levers—everything."  I recognize that I'm oversimplifying, but one wonders if the need for a less complex chair could have been identified with a few weeks of research rather than ten years of tinkering (although maybe getting it simple was all in the tinkering).

In the same issue Don Norman's Selective Memories, gives perspective on the evolution of design focus:

"If the last century was about rationality and reason (or attempted to be), let’s hope this one ushers in a deeper appreciation of human behavior. Ideally, logic and reason would remain important, but cognition (how we understand things) and emotion (how we value them) should play equally important roles."

Perhaps the fact that Niels and Norman - both well into their golden years - were the representation for ergonomics issues, speaks to the continued perception of human factors as the domain for gurus, while design is the realm of young rock stars?  But the content is is balanced by A Call to Arms, examining high-tech prosthetics for returning soldiers - "the ultimate ergonomic challenge."

Last, but not least, check out Ben Katchor's The Nozzle, a pseudo-nostalgic comic strip perspective on the role of customer research in design and marketing.

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).

Understanding Analysis

 

Steve Baty has written a gem for JohnnyHolland.org on Deconstructing Analysis Techniques.  Essentially a primer on various types of data analysis and organization methods, this meta-analysis is succinct, clear and readable.  Baty did a great job of defining and differentiating terms that all to often are used interchangeably or imprecisely.  He is assisted by the simple, but effective graphics of Jeroen van Geel, which serve as a data visualization to accompany the text.  For example, on "Aggregation":

  In one respect aggregation is simply the process of bringing together data from a variety of sources and adding it together. In an analytic context it also carries with it the connotation of combining those sources together into something new...

...We combine data from each of these sources and arrive at some single figure - based on some form of calculation (we’ll save the ‘how’ of that for another time). That single figure - which we can track year-to-year - is our aggregate. Unlike a summary, which characterizes a single piece of data, you can see that our aggregate is a composite value.

In short, a beautiful little article...I wish I could write like this once in a while.

Checklists as a Design Tool

The humble checklist has been receiving a good deal of attention in recent years, particularly in the context of medical error avoidance.  For example, earlier this year the New England Journal of Medicine published A Surgical Safety Checklist to Reduce Morbidity and Mortality in a Global Population.  The international study reported a nearly 50% decline in patient deaths when a combined written/verbal checklist was used in conjunction with surgical procedures.  The authors diligently point out several possible sources of error that may have contributed to the results, including the Hawthorne effect, a "short-term improvement caused by observing worker performance." 

But rather than seeing the Hawthorne effect as a source of error, I see it as a source of performance.  That is, the checklist process serves as a continuing form of performance observation - by having to refer to an external reference, the surgical teams were consistently self-aware and performed better as a consequence.

Self-awareness is an important issue in successful design as well.  A major challenge in user research is communicating recommendations or guidelines to a design and/or engineering team, with the goal of affecting the team's behavior towards a desired design outcome.  Design guidelines are typically communicated in a number of ways - reports, presentations, working sessions, collaborative discussions, etc. - but the checklist format might be an even more effective communication tool.  This is because of both the way checklists are created, and how they are used.

The checklist format requires that information is presented in specific, succinct and actionable terms.  For example detailing the size of touch points, the labeling of a control, or the diameter of a handle.  This forces the checklist creator (i.e. the researcher) to come to specific recommendations.  Those items that cannot be boiled down to a single point should be further discussed or researched until they can be, and if not, considered for removal.

For the checklist reader, the benefits of a structured list over a more vague presentation or lengthy report should be clear.  But its also important to keep in mind the verbal component of checklist usage in the medical study.  The check-and-balance approach of having open communication is probably as important, if not more, than the checklist itself. 

Comparing the benefits of a checklist in the highly structured, rigorous surgical domain with the creative, diverse world of design may be a stretch, but I expect that the value of clear communication is consistent across all human endeavors.

Human Factors of Imaginary Objects

Bruce Stirling's new undertaking, The Imaginary Gadgets Project, has re-inspired my thinking around the human factors of imaginary objects.  Stirling describes his project as "a catalog of the weirdest things imaginable."  Compared to real-life gadgets, imaginary ones include everything from "futuristic gadgets" (pictured above), to "radically impossible gadgets" and "gadgets of the fantastic and the occult (crystal balls, magic wands); the personal hardware of the saints and the gods", to name a few categories.

What interests me about such devices is not their obviously incredible and/or supernatural capabilities, but rather the more mundane aspects of how a user would interact with them.  For no matter how complex, esoteric or unfathomable the capabilities of an imaginary object, there must be some connection between the user and the system, be it tangible, telepathic or otherwise. 

I said I was re-inspired to look at this area because in 2007 I had looked at the human factors of nonobjects, nonobjects being branko Lucic's forthcoming design fiction book.  For example, I examined the ergonomics of dialing the Tarati, a touch-less phone, pictured below, that has spaces instead of buttons (ergonomic issues included lack of tactile feedback and need to accommodate a range of finger diameters).

Curiously, the nonobjects book has yet to be published, making it something of an imaginary object itself.

So what's the value of this imaginary human factors & usability beyond intellectual curiosity?  I think there are at least two relevant benefits.  The first is inspiration - thinking about how people might interact with a crystal ball or time machine takes us outside of our everyday human-computer interaction thinking, and can give us ideas, if only metaphorical, about how to design a user experience.  I don't have any proof, but there's a good chance that the Wii controller was influenced by light sabers.

The second benefit is more subtle, but perhaps more important - motivation.  Consider that virtually every product a designer works on prior to its development and launch is an imaginary product.  It's really just a question of degree.  A new online form is not much different than an existing one that it might be replacing, but whatever small details need significant enough changes to require a designers input are imaginary until they are designed and realized.  Similarly, determining the appropriate human factors for the controls on a new car is necessary because the controls for that car do not yet exist.  In other words, the very nature of human factors design is making the imaginary concrete.  Studying the hypothetical human factors for imaginary products is really just an extreme version of what we do as designers every day. 

I plan to follow Bruce Stirling's thread and find out what practical ideas might come from these fantastic gadgets.  Now there is the other side of the coin...an imaginary human factors - but that's for another discussion.

Appearing on Design Forty

I'll be the guest on this Wednesday's (Feb 11th) Design Forty to discuss design research blogging (what else?).  Design Forty is a weekly 40-minute conference call hosted by Dan Rockwell of Lextant.  It's open to anyone, but requires registration to join in the call via Calliflower.

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.

IDSA Updates

The Industrial Designers Society of America has launched their new web site at IDSA.org.  In addition to an improved visual layout, the site takes a direct approach to user-centered design by providing navigation options for three targeted groups: public, members and media.  Once you select your group, the relevant sub-set of primary navigation options appear.  This is one of those information architecture approaches that is often discussed but rarely applied, so I'm curious to see if it works out effectively.

{note the site design was up as of 4 Feb, but then went back to the old version and a note that the updated design would be back soon}

In other IDSA news, Human Factors section chair Steve Wilcox was voted as IDSA President-elect.  Therefore I am taking over as section chair until the fall elections, so please contact me (robtannen at hotmail dot com) with any questions or suggestions. The full list of IDSA interest sections and chairs is listed here.

Asterisks *2 Feb 2009

Asterisks - our new label for brief notes of interest.  In this case, items that relate to the visual, auditory and tactile senses.

• Visual - Rafe Needleman of CNET writes about "The Myth of Width: When widescreens don't work".  He takes on the ongoing trend of widescreen format displays in a range of consumer products, a presentation form that isn't always task approrpriate:

One area where I believe we should (but probably won't) see continued releases of consumer portrait-mode displays, though: personal navigation devices. Recently the PND companies have started to offer wide-screen navigation units. How does this make sense? When we use a computer-generated map that's always rotating to show us where we're going at the top of the screen, why do we care what's out the side windows? It's what's coming up that matters. Serious navigation products for back-country hikers are portrait mode. The wider you make a map display the more you sacrifice useful information for distraction--although, again, it makes the devices look cool.

 

• Auditory & Tactile - File this one under why didn't I think of that?  Carnegie Mellon University researchers are using simple microphones and software to turn virtually an surface into a gestural-based controller.  From a tabletop to your leg.  See the video for a clear technical explanation (from the interaction-focused site johnnyholland.org)

FieldCREW Concept 2.0

We've made some design revisions since I presented the FieldCREW concept - a system for gathering observational data - at the Design Research Conference last September. 

Download FieldCREW_Storyboard (PDF) for an updated overview of the concept design approach, including descriptions of the remote data collecting components and early research & sketches.

Ergonomics for Interaction Designers: Part 3

  

This is the third and final part of this introductory "mini-series".  Part 1 introduced the value of ergonomics to interaction designers, and Part 2 discussed some of the challenges and methods of anthropometric design for a broad range of users.  Now I am going to focus on how to identify ergonomic issues in observational and lab testing contexts.

Qualitative Observations Issues in Field Research

While interaction designers will typically lack special training in ergonomic assessment methods, most will have some degree of familiarity, if not significant experience with user-centered methods including contextual observation (aka ethnographic field research) and usability testing.  All of these methods share objective observation as a common data gathering method, and really only vary in the particular variables or characteristics that are the subject of study.  And while anthropometric data is intrinsically quantitative, qualitative observational research can be applied to identify ergonomic issues.  With these factors in mind, I've developed a basic set of ergonomic observational criteria to use as guidelines when evaluating design fit.  The guidelines are inspired by Stephen Pheasant's cardinal rules of anthropometrics, extended to qualitative field research. 

Pheasant advised focusing on Reach, Clearance, Posture and Strength.  I'll explain how these can be applied to a consumer electronics device, the InterAction Labs SQWEEZE Game Controller, pictured above.  The SQWEEZE is an accessory to the Nintendo Wii - inserting a Wii controller into the SQWEEZE unit allows the user to apply push/pull forces for gaming - think of drawing a bow string to shoot an arrow, for example.  While the SQWEEZE was well designed by ergonomics standards, it makes for a good example for explaining the four anthropometric characteristics:

• Reach typically refers to extending the arms and finger for effective control without over-extension.  In the case of the airport Kiosk discussed in Parts 1 & 2 there's a clear potential for placing the touch screen at a height or distance that would be difficult for some people to access effectively.  That type of reach is a non-issue for handheld devices like the SQWEEZE, but other types of reach can come into play.  In the case of two-handed devices, the distance between the handles needs to be appropriately set to accommodate a comfortable grip.  For the SQWEEZE, this distance actually varied between the push and pull positions as the handles flexed inward and outward respectively.  Similarly, the diameter of the handles affects the user's ability to adequately wrap his or her fingers around them; a smaller-scale, but just as important, reach issue. 
• While reach is about making sure things are not too far away, clearance is primarily focused on making sure things aren't too close together.  In interaction design terms, we might think of this as literal "white space".    There needs to be adequate room for the hands to move around the handles without bumping into anything, constraining usability or performance.
• We tend to think of posture as a full-body issue; standing upright or bending.  But in fact posture, defined as deviation from a natural, comfortable position, can be examined at the level of a specific limb or limb-segment.  In handheld controllers, wrist posture is frequently the factor of interest.  A design that forces the joints into contorted, unconformable positions, particularly for extended periods, is an ergonomic failure.
• Strength was particularly important for the SQWEEZE as it's essentially a force transfer device.  Testing with children indicated the device should not exceed 2.5lbs, but it also had to withstand up to 150lbs of crushing and pulling - the strength of a 90th percentile male.  In more general terms, designs should avoid requiring significant exertion by the user, but need to have sufficient resistance to provide feedback and avoid accidental triggering, for example as on a mobile phone keypad.

I've just scratched the surface of these four key ergonomic factors, but I want to re-enforce a couple of critical issues to keep in mind.  First, when we talk about an particular factor, it's important to consider it at multiple levels of scale.  In the case of posture, we might look broadly at how someone approaches a kiosk from an overall body perspective, but then focus more narrowly on the deviation of the hands and fingers.  Second, these factors are not independent of each other - in fact they are highly co-influential.  For example, if there is limited visual access, then a user may change his or her body and limb postures to accommodate improved field-of-view, but in doing so, increase the extent of reach and reduce the effective  transfer strength.

Last, but not least, I add a fifth factor which goes beyond the physical, to the perceptual and cognitive: Feedback.  Feedback refers to the user's ability to receive input on the impact of their actions on the interface or system.  For the SQWEEZE this can mean the tactile, visual and even audible mechanical feedback that corresponds with using the device.  For a touch screen kiosk, there is the perceived resistance of the touch service, and the feedback from the software responses.

Putting all this together, a person conducting observational research can use these five factors as a checklist for identifying potential ergonomic problems in real-time, or post-hoc (e.g. with video review). 

As a mnemonic aid, putting Feedback together with the other four ergonomic factors (Reach, Clearance, Posture and Strength), gives us FRCPS, or FoRCePS.  This was actually created as a mental cue during surgical observations, thus the clinical abbreviations.  I'm certainly open to more approachable re-combinations of the letters.

Measured vs Perceived Fit

In more formal assessment situations, such as usability testing, there are a number of quantitative methods for measuring fit and identifying ergonomic problems or risks.  But what seems well-designed on paper doesn't always result in well-received or usable.  I've observed numerous situations where the "technical" ergonomic requirements of a design would suggest a good fit, but in reality, the majority of users preferred an alternative.  There are various reasons for this ranging from individual differences, to preference for the familiar, to the influence of aesthetic design.  It's not the reason for these outcomes that matters so much as the need to capture this input.  In other words, it's just as important to measure subjective or perceived fit and comfort, as it is to measure anthropometric fidelity.

Recently, a number of surveys and guidelines have become available for measuring perceived comfort (I realized perceived comfort is redundant, but I'm including it for clarity).  For example, Kuijt-Evers, Vink & De Looze present a basic survey for hand tool comfort that covers factors from ease of use, to performance to....blisters.  In practice, it's helpful to use a vetted survey like this as a starting point, and then add and subtract questions based on the particular needs of your product, users and tasks, paying attention to the FoRCePS issues described above.  As with any user-research study, piloting and iterating the usability testing approach is as important as iterating the design itself.

 

 

Part 3 Takeaways

• Keep awareness of key ergonomic issues during design, research and usability testing by focusing on the five critical aspects of ergonomics - feedback, reach, clearance, posture and strength - keeping in mind that not all are of equal relevance for each design case.
• Good technical fit of a product is meaningless if users don't find it comfortable.  Therefore, evaluate the qualitative aspects of ergonomics in parallel with technical measurement.

Hopefully, these guidelines can serve as a starting point for thinking about and integrating ergonomics into your design process.  They can be readily included into existing design research and usability testing protocols There may be an intimidation factor, as there is a tremendous amount of technical knowledge in the ergonomics field (even a professional certification), but these qualitative methods can give you a high-level head start.  Remember, good design is as much as about identifying problems as solving them. 

keep it simple, stupid

 

     

Last, but not least, in a number of my recent writings around the topic of simplicity in product design.  keep it simple,stupid (pdf) , is a an overview of the "state-of-the-art" of simplicity and clarity in products and product design methods.  With input from business and design experts including, The Harvard Business Review, Dan Saffer, John Madea, Nathan Shredoff and 37signals, not to mention my own perspectives:

"There are a number of ways to achieve clarity, but what they all have in common is a goal of balancing three characteristics of the user experience: guidance, comfort and sensation. Guidance is the most straightforward and refers to a product or system’s ability to clearly articulate how it works to the user. Guidance may be communicated implicitly in the design of the interface elements, or explicitly via instructions and labels. Comfort refers to the degree of fit between the user and the system. This can include the physical or ergonomic suitability and the appropriate level of cognitive demand. Finally, sensation is the ability of the system to motivate the user to interact. Ultimately, clarity is achieved when a user knows how to use a product, is able to do so comfortably and is engaged with it during use."

The article also highlights some recent successful products that were driven by simplicity including the Flip Video Mino (pictured above) and the Tata Nano car (below).

The article was published in issue #4 of Barclays 360 magazine.   

Ergonomics for Interaction Designers: Part 2

Part 1 of E *IxD set up the conceptual background on why ergonomics is a valuable knowledge area for interaction designers and  discussed some of the basics of anthropometrics (designing for fit).  We were looking at Eye Height as a critical attribute for positioning the height of a kiosk display, so that a broad range of users could comfortably view the screen.  But having the display at an appropriate height for visibility is just addressing one aspect of interaction - the user also needs to control the interface - in this case via a touch screen. 

Designing for Multiple Anthropometric Dimensions

There are several body measurements that could be relevant for reaching a touch screen, but a practical one would be Forward Grip Reach distance - roughly the distance from the shoulder axis to the palm of the hand.  With those two metrics in mind - eye height and forward grip reach - you could picture any user as the function of two perpendicular lines  - a vertical line, representing the individual's eye height, and a horizontal line representing arm reach.  This is illustrated above for a range of three different users - note that the wheelchair user has a sitting eye height compared with the two standing users. 

While it might seem relatively straightforward as to how to situate the kiosk- place the screen at a distance and height that accommodates the greatest range of users - the story gets more complicated, because, well people are complicated. Not just complicated in a psychological sense, but in an anthropometrical sense as well.  The factor that adds complexity is the lack of correlation among anthropometric measurements within people.  What do I mean by that?  Let's take a step back and think in interaction design terms.

In interface design, one is typically working within the constraints of a display.  For example, a common resolution for web browsers is 1024 pixels x 768 pixels.  Some older displays might be set at 800x600.  So while the specific vertical and horizontal dimensions change, the relationship between height and width, or aspect ratio, remains constant at approximate;y 1.3 in both cases.  So if you're taking a design originally intended for 1024x768 and then need to scale it down to 800x600, it will need to be reduced proportionally. 

Ergonomic design would be much easier if people had consistent "aspect ratios", but our body measurements are not predictably proportional or strongly correlated.  Meaning the that all of the the tallest people in one dimension (such as eye height) do not always have the longest measurement for all other dimensions (for example, forward grip reach).  An extreme example, swimmer Michael Phelps has a reach that is longer than the majority of people of the same height.   What this means is that for practical purposes, each anthropometric variable could be considered independent of others. (Note that the level of correlation among different metrics can vary - for example, different attributes of the hand are closely correlated to each other, but measurements of different limbs are weakly associated.)  So when we are setting an eye height that accommodates the lower 5% to upper 95% of that metric, and then a forward grip reachthat accommodates the lower 5% to upper 95% for that particular metric, we are actually talking about two different groups of people.  Only a subset of people who fall within the eye height range will also fall within the reach range, albeit a large subset, but below the 90% of the population we are striving to include.

 

Another way of understanding this is described in the Herman Miller monograph on The Anthropometrics of Fit.  The design focus in this case is fitting people to a chair rather than a touch screen kiosk, but the concept is the same.  In the illustration above the back row represents all of the people who were the original intended audience for fitting a chair.  Each row in front  of that shows how a small percentage of people are excluded with each anthropometric variable (seat height, seat depth, etc.).  The front row shows the overlap of all four variables such that  "almost one-third of our sample [in blue] had at least one dimension out of four that was either smaller that the 5th percentile female or larger than the 95th percentile male."

Practical Solutions

There are some analytical methods for more effectively addressing these issues mathematically, but that's beyond the scope of discussion (for those interested, see Guidelines for Using Anthropometric Data in Product Design) .  In practical terms there are three solution approaches: design multiple sizes, adjustability and satisficing. 

Multiple sizes, as it implies, creates a range of models, where each is targeted at a specific subset of the user population.  The most extreme example of this (aside from bespoke, individualized designs) comes from clothing and footwear, where there are literally dozens of sizes and variations to enable a relatively close fit for the vast majority of the population.  For products such as furniture, this may be limited to three or four sizes, better known as small, medium and large.  In fact, this was Herman Miller's solution to the chair fit problem - creating three different sizes allowed for fit of 95% of the population between the smallest 1st percent and highest 99 percent - a greater range then they had originally intended. During the design of the airport kiosk that we discussed in part 1, one of the early proposed solutions was to create a two-sided kiosk with a "low" and "high" screen positions that could comfortably suit a wide range of users.

Adjustability is really a special case of multiple sizes where the user (or an expert) modifies the fit at installation or during use.  Most of us are familiar with adjusting the driver's seat in a car.  These seats are not infinitely adjustable, but typically have three or more control points that can lead to a very wide range of positions, within the available space constraints.  The downsides of adjustability are cost, reliability, and the extra work placed on the user to adjust the fit.  Note, that many users may not always set the best fit for themselves.

Satisficing,  is coming up with a single solution that fits the broadest range of users.  In practice this tends to skew towards the smaller or shorter end of users because, larger users can always bend (although at 6' 4" I can say that's not always comfortable) and smaller users may have physical limitations due to age or disability that take priority (legal and otherwise).  Most designs for public spaces will take this approach, as in elevators, water fountains and ATMs.   For the kiosk, the best single solution is pictured below at a fixed height and distance that was manageable for a broad range of users:

 

Prototyping for Fit

Whether designing a single solution or multiple sizes, it is important to  to follow a user-centered design process.  There may be room in interface design for "genius-centered design", but there's no substitute for real-world measurement of physical fit.  As in interaction design, prototyping can take many forms, depending on your goals and need for fidelity at each stage of the design process.  For example, if the initial goal was simply to conduct a real-world test of key dimensions, then a simple sticker on a wall could serve as a "prototype" for display position.  For more detailed issues, such as task-specific grips on a tool handle, foam mock-ups can be created and evaluated.

A typical UCD process for ergonomic fit would follow these steps, presented in an abbreviated form here:

1. Define relevant populations (e.g. age range, nationality, sex)
2. Define key dimensions or variable for fit consideration (e.g. height, reach, weight, etc)
3. Determine boundary measures for each anthropometric dimension from reference data, from lower 5th to upper 95th percentile (keeping in mind that some dimensions, such as head clearance in a doorway, may be one-sided)
4. Compare referenced dimensions with existing real-world products for reality check
5. Apply dimensions to create mock-ups for initial, informal ergonomic feedback with users
6. Refine design(s) to create foam or similar low-fidelity mock-ups for fit evaluation
7. Continue to refine as needed/budgeted

In part 3 I'll get into specifics around actually measuring the "usability of fit", that is, the quantitative and qualitative measures to assess whether a design actually fits a range of users.

Part 2 Takeaways:

• Anthropometric variables such as height and reach should be considered as independent of each other.  Therefore the more variables that you are designing for, the smaller that population that will fit across all of those dimensions. 
• Human bodies do not have fixed aspect ratios like screens do, but it seems a little more than coincidental that widescreen displays became popular in synch with the growth in population obesity.
• Providing multiple sized designs or adjustability are pragmatic solutions when good fit is important, but in most cases, a single, satisficing solution is required.
• Use anthropometric data as a starting point to build mock-ups or prototypes, then evaluate fit - more to be discussed next time.

Automobile Dashboard Design

While the prestige of this year's North American International Auto Show was somewhat diminished by the poor financial condition of the auto industry, there was a strong showing for the state-of-the-art in dashboard user interfaces.

Automobile manufacturers are frequently leaders at bring new technology to mainstream consumers (e.g. satellite radio, GPS), so it seems like it's time the industry caught up to the rapidly changing field of interface design.

The New York Times reported on "Dashboards that Promise to Do More Than Inform":

Drivers accustomed to receiving vehicle information from familiar needle-and-dial gauges will soon benefit from the work automakers are doing to create information systems that are more flexible and take advantage of the latest developments in computer displays.

Instrument panels that can be customized to a driver’s whim are already available, but the next wave could include designs where the gauges are not fixed in place on the dashboard

I'm all for adapting interfaces to drivers' needs, but hope that the customization is limited to effective information displays that support visibility and reaction time.

Of particular note was a system demonstrated by Mercedes, which uses an array of driving behavior sensors to "sense" if the driver may be inattentive or drowsy, and displays a coffee cup warning light (pictured above). 

The magazine design mind by Frog has also recently published an article, "Driver Experience Design", that reviews other emerging technologies in automobile control design, including haptic feedback for safety:

Nissan is also working on a design called “Eco-Pedal” that uses chip sensors to determine when excessive throttle is causing poor fuel mileage, triggering a push-back mechanism on the driver’s foot. Volvo’s “City Safety” system uses radar technology to sense imminent collisions at speeds between nine and 18 mph, and it automatically applies the brakes when closing speeds are too high.

Ergonomics for Interaction Designers: Part 1

Firstly, this is not about adjusting your chair so that you're not slumped over the screen when working on a Flash prototype (although office ergonomics is a very important subject).  Rather, the topic of discussion is the increasing value of ergonomics knowledge to the interaction designer.  Ergonomics is necessary for 3-dimensional, tangible product design where issues of physical fit and comfort are critical.  But for interaction designers in the 2-dimensional world of the display screen, ergonomics has largely been...irrelevant.  For example in most cases, interfaces are designed for existing, defined hardware that are out of the control of the interaction designer.  But things are changing...

Driving Factors
The continuing convergence of digital interfaces with physical products is putting interaction designers in a position where knowledge of anthropometrics, kinesthetics, and other non-cognitive human capabilities is valuable for creating effective design solutions. 

There are several trends contributing to this, including:

1. The rapid proliferation of touch screen and other gestural interfaces which combine "direct" physical control with digital interface design.  If you want to design for a finger, you have to know how a finger works. 
2. The growth of ubiquitous computing leading to an increased range of scale and form factor in devices that contain interfaces, from traditional computers and laptops, to kiosks, tablets, phones, interactive video walls, electronic ink and consumer appliances (to name a few).  As a result, people are interacting with interfaces in  range of positions and contexts that go beyond simply standing or sitting in front of a screen. So beyond fingertips, knowing how people can reasonably user their bodies to hold, view, reach and interact is valuable.
3. Computing power and bandwidth across such devices now supports more complex, involved tasks such as data entry, long duration reading and gaming, all of which can lead to risks for repetitive motion injuries, or at least discomfort. Having a knowledge of the types of interactions that can cause such injuries, and how to design around them, is essential.
4. An ever increasingly diverse range of end-users are gaining access to interactive devices, across age, and physical characteristics.  For example, the One Laptop Per Child campaign has produced a global, kid-sized laptop.  In home health care, a market of predominately elderly users, more devices contain embedded interfaces.  And ADA and similar legislation requires that devices are accessible to users with a range of disabilities.  In other words, you need to know your user, for it is not you - a given in interface design, a necessity in ergonomic design.
5. Last, but not least - interest.  Several of the factors described above are driving many interaction designers to explore and study the world of physical product design. For example, the IIT Institute of Design is hosting a "thinkering" workshop specifically to provide "an opportunity for interaction designers to get their hands dirty with electronics, soldering, and wiring, and learn how to interface hardware artifacts with virtual interactions."  Just as it is important to understand the electro-mechanics of hardware, it is essential to understand the relevant mechanical attributes for the users of such hardware.

What all of these trends have in common is a growing need to accommodate human physical characteristics and constraints in the design of digital interfaces.  For the most part, this skill set is not part of the experience of interaction designers.  Consequently, I'm posting this first in a series of explorations on the topic of Ergonomics for Interaction Designers, or E *IxD for short.

Anthropometrics: The Building Blocks of Ergonomic Design

In any field of design there are those elements that are defined and unchangeable, and those that are malleable  It is the latter in which designers specialize.  For example, in interaction design, the fixed elements might include a specified screen resolution, development language and minimum type size.  As you might guess, in physical product design, there are many constraints, but human physical characteristics are the most fundamental.  Therefore, the most fundamental design question is, how do I design for the range of human physical constraints?  For this, we turn to anthropometrics the measure of human body size and proportions. 

Let's focus on one simple anthropometric variable - height.  Actually, even height is not that straightforward as there are many types of height: stature (what we mean when we say height), eye height (distance from the ground to the eyes - important for display positioning), shoulder height, fingertip height (standing, with arms relaxed), and sitting elbow height, to name a few. 

Suppose we are designing an interactive touch screen kiosk that will be used in an international airport terminal (like the one pictured below, via Core77).  It is expected that the kiosk users will include travelers from around the world, male and female, from kids through elderly adults.  While this may sound like the worst case scenario for physical design (and it is), it's also very typical.  In this case we are going to focus initially on eye height because we want to set the display so that it can be viewed most easily without looking up or bending down too much.  (Note that line of sight is optimally about 10 degrees below the horizontal plane.)

If we refer to anthropometric data tables, like those found in Stephen Pheasant's Bodyspace,  we find quite a range in eye height, varying by nationality, age and sex.  For example an average, 50th percentile Dutch man has an eye height of 1670mm, while an average, 50th percentile eight year old British girl has an eye height of 1165mm.  That's over a 500mm difference, and those aren't even the most disparate populations!  So how do we accommodate the diversity of physical characteristics?

Molenbroek and de Bruin discuss the various approaches that one can take to accommodating the range of anthropometric characteristics, summarized in the diagram below:

The most basic approach, if we can even call it that, is "Procrustus", which means that no attempt to accommodate the user has been made, and the user must adapt to the product, however it happened to be designed.   Incidentally, this term comes from Greek Mythology, where Procrustes was fitted to a bed by sawing off his head and feet.  Only slightly better is the Ego-design approach, where the designer uses his or her own body as a reference.  Now every designer does this to some extent for convenience, but it should serve only as a starting reference point.

Design for the mean sounds like a good idea - find the average eye height, and the majority of users will be accommodated.  False assumption - as the diagram indicates, a majority of people are excluded by relying on the mean, with only a few falling into the sweet spot in the center.

Designing for one end of the spectrum (small) or the other (tall), can work in some cases.  For example, if you design a door to accommodate the tallest users, then by definition, those of shorter stature will fit as well, as clearance is a one-ended variable.  But in our case, the appropriate height of a kiosk display is a two-ended issue - there is a hypothetical "too high" as well as a "too low".

Which brings us to some workable approaches.  Design for adjustability means that the product can accommodate a range of users, typically through a mechanical solution. For example, a tilting, height adjustable screen, or multiple interaction stations set at different eye heights.  Of course adjustability in the physical world adds cost and complexity, and can lead to unreliable products, so is not always an available solution. 

In the end, the most common solution is to Design for More Types.  In practice this typically means defining a population and then fitting for a reasonable range within that population. Traditionally that range spans from the smallest fifth percentile to the largest 95th percentile.  This includes a very broad range of users, but purposely excludes the most extreme 10% of the population (the largest 5% and smallest 5%) - the long tail, where a small number of outlier users can account for a significant design change. 

Last, but not least is the ideal - Design for All.  This means that the product can fit the entire range of an anthropometric characteristic.  This is technically possible as humans are not infinitely variable in any dimension.

Part 1 Takeaways:

• Knowledge of ergonomic methods and techniques is becoming a valuable skill set for interaction designers due the growing diversity of devices, users and contexts for interaction.
• Anthropometrics, the measure of the human body, is a fundamental area in ergonomics, and a starting point for understanding how to design systems that fit people.
• Among anthropometric approaches, designing for a broad range (5th to 95th percentile) is often the most practical and accomodating.
• When furniture shopping in Ancient Greece, be specific about measurements.

In Part 2 I'll discuss how to apply the anthropometrics to a real-world interaction design problem, and also discuss the added complexity of dealing with multiple anthropometric variables - like eye height and arm length, so the user can actually see and reach the screen.

comments and suggestions always welcomed...

Follow D *fh on Twitter

There's a number of ways to stay up to date on the latest postings here...RSS, email, and now Twitter.  Just follow me on Twitter (robtannen) and you'll get tweets when new posts are loaded. 

Ergonomic Innovations at CES

I'm trying to track the hundreds of new product announcements at this year's Consumer Electronics Show.  And while there's always innovations in technical functionality, it's hard to spot a direct ergonomic improvement. 

But here's a couple of exceptions to that rule:

• The Samsung HMX-R10 video camera(pictured above).  A CNET previewer said that it features a "lens that's angled at 25 degrees so you can grip the camera more naturally in front of you for both photos and video--or at least that's what I'm hoping for."
• The Kodak Z980 digital SLR camera  has two shutter buttons.  One in the traditional top right, and the other on the side of the body for taking pictures in portrait mode ((see video below).  In other words when you hold the camera sideways, you have a more accessible and natural reach to the secondary shutter button.

Ergonomists Without Borders

I think there's a real opportunity for ergonomic expertise to support many of the international programs that support developing communities.  For example, Engineers Without Borders enables the "implementation of sustainable engineering projects, while involving and training internationally responsible engineers and engineering students."  These projects are frequently focused on basic human needs such as water purification/delivery and sanitation.  Many of these solutions require human power.  I wonder whether ergonomic expertise has been applied to the design and implementation of these systems.  This is particularly important, given the diversity of anthropometric characteristics across the served communities.

One organization that is contributing is Synergo Arts, which is a "resource for ergonomics education, consulting, and design for communities of artists and artisans around the  world, to maximize their health, income, performance, productivity, and the quality of the art or craft that they create."  Their ergonomically designed weaving bench (pictured above) also won a User-Centered Design Award from the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society in 2007.  The bench is actually produced by local carpenters (in South America) for local weavers, thereby benefiting two industries.

If you know of similar organizations or individuals working towards improving ergonomics in developing communities, please contact me.

From "The Greatest Product Demo Ever" to the "Macbook Wheel"

...or from the sublime to the ridiculous.  Two interesting videos in juxtaposition:

Scott Berkun of the Harvard Business Review discusses the 40th anniversary of the "The Greatest Product Demo Ever" - computer pioneer Douglas Englebart's presentation that introduced the world to the computer mouse, email, hyperlinking, and other innovative human-computer interaction solutions.  The video, above, is a little hard to hear, so turn up your volume.  Bekrun uses the demo as a jumping point for a discussion on why it takes so long for great products to reach the mainstream:

One might ask "Why are we so stupid that we can't adopt good ideas faster?" But the problem isn't about being smart or stupid. New ideas travel through cultures at much slower rates that we realize, especially if the idea requires 1) throwing something away and replacing it with something else 2) re-learning skills or 3) co-ordination by large independent organizations.

 

Fast forward to the present.  The satirical Onion has created a convincing demo of the "Macbook Wheel", a keyboard-less laptop that uses an iPod navigation wheel and button for all functions - including typing.  It's simplicity that violates usability.  I especially enjoyed the automatically suggested sentence completion choices.  One wonders whether Englebart's demo received similar disbelief and laughter at the time.

Objectified Trailer Online

 

Objectified - The trailer for this forthcoming industrial design-focused film by Helvetica creator Gary Hustwit is available.   The new film is focused on famous industrial designers (think Jonathan Ive, Karim Rashid), but I had emailed Hustwit several months ago about the inclusion of design research and human factors, since it plays an important role in the ID process.  Hustwit responded that IDEO's Jane Fulton Suri was interviewed as part of the film.

"Reading Your Mind" Video on 60 Minutes

60 Minutes must have a thing for neuro-research.  Following on from their November story on Brain-Computer Interfaces, the news magazine has just run a piece on the application of functional MRIs for "thought identification" research.

It's a balanced, if shallow piece, but I was irritated by reporter Lesley Stahl's folkish reluctance to accept that thought is physically based.  Fortunately, she was kept in check by a rational thinking neuroscientist, Marcel Just:

"It's breathtaking," Stahl said. "And kind of eerie."

"Well, you know, I think the reason people have that reaction is because it reveals the essence of what it means to be a person. All of those kinds of things that define us as human beings are brain patterns," Just replied.

"We don't wanna know that… it all boils down to, I don't know, molecules and things like that," Stahl said.

"But we are, you know, we are biological creatures. You know, our limbs we accept are, you know, muscles and bone. And our brain is a biological thinking machine," he replied.

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

"Green" Ergonomics in LEED Building Design

 

Several months ago I discussed the relevance of user-centered design to the successful design of sustainable products and services.  Now a more concrete (literally) example of the intrinsic connection between human factors and green design.  

Alan Hedge writes about The Sprouting of "Green" Ergonomics (PDF) in the December issue of the HF&ES Bulletin.  Hedge reports on the new version of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED Green Building Rating System, which includes specific guidelines and credits for creating an ergonomic environment.

The guidelines focus primarily on office workstation ergonomics (although industrial settings are touched on as well).  For example, the LEED guidlines cover standards around display adjustability and glare, work surface dimensions, and chair adjustability.  You can download relevant "green" ergonomic checklists from Cornell's ergonomic resource.

Adding ergonomics to LEED requirements seems like a natural extension to me - both are targeted at improving the health and comfort of individuals who work within buildings.  There may also be some direct correlations between the more traditional LEED categories such as materials & resources, and ergonomics. For instance, a poorly fitted workstation may be more readily replaced than one chosen appropriately - thereby leading to increased materials use.

Hedge also makes the point that the new LEED guidelines will change perceptions about office ergonomics - from a reactive, problem-solving model in most cases, to a proactive problem-avoiding approach as it is intended.

 

One Hundred Thousand Views

DesigningforHumans.com just passed 100,000 page views.  While that's not a lot in Internet terms, it is a milestone for a small blog.  Incidentally, the 100,000th hit was from a Google search for someone looking for anthropometric information on shoulder width.

Next month we'll be the start of the 5th year for the site, and I am planning a major site redesign as well as new content and features.  As always your interest and inquires are appreciated - robtannen@hotmail.com

Have a happy and safe new year! 

-Rob Tannen

State of the Art - Ergonomics of Chairs

In an intriguing coincidence, two top-names in ergonomic-focused industrial design have introduced new chairs that take different approaches to fit and comfort.  As with my recent discussion on handle design, chairs are another iconic challenge to ergonomic designers - thousands of versions, but no exact set of rules to achieve perfect fit and comfort.

Core77 posted a "living with" review of the Herman Miller Embody chair.  In other words, they actually "spent every day for just over a month living with the chair, putting it through its paces, and trying to wear it out."  I encourage you to read the full review of this innovative chair, but from an ergonomics perspective I was most interested in how the chair reacted with the user:

"The designers apparently intended this chair to encourage you to move around in it, and there's a five-page PDF detailing how the chair was designed to promote "tissue perfusion"..in other office chairs I've used, I will of course occasionally stretch; but the difference with the Embody was that I was stretching into the chair, using parts of it like some kind of Pilates ball. It really has to be experienced to be understood."

A simpler alternative is the the eponymous Diffrient Work Chair for Humanscale, reviewed by ID Magazine's editor-in-chief Julie Lasky,   Diffrient has been working on the chair for a decade, so that

"The user’s weight automatically transfers a proportionate force for recline, eliminating the need for adjustment and the usual spring mechanism; leaning back ramps the seat upward and forward to achieve the appropriate upright or reclined position...Though he considered a forward tilt mechanism in early Diffrient chair prototypes, he chose not to have one in the end because of the added cost and complexity. Besides, he says, the “mechanism encourages the common but undesirable position of people straining to operate the computer.”

While these two chairs differ in their ergonomic approach - the Diffirient chair is expected to cost less than half of the Embody - they are designed with different functions and towards different uses - so a direct comparison is not necessarily relevant.  But as a researcher focused on both quantitative fit and qualitative comfort, I am looking forward to experiencing the state of the art from two of the most respected design names in the industry.

Top Posts of 2008: DfH Year in Review

With just a few weeks left in the year (and even less productive blogging time), I thought I would put together this brief "best of 2008" on Designing for Humans.  If you're new to the blog, this is a good way to catch-up on some of the highlights you may have missed over the past year:

• User Research Technology - Always a core theme on DfH, this year I took a hands-on look at applying many emerging tools to support design research.  This included the Livescribe Pulse Pen, Casio's High Speed Camera and the IDEA award winning Size China anthropometric data set.  Looking to the future, I unveiled the FieldCREW workstation concept (pictured), and discussed the state of user research technology at the Design Research Conference.  Still waiting on the FitBit tracking device (hopefully in the approaching weeks).
• Reading - I recommend the best book on user research, a forthcoming book on product design, design research-related articles in the Harvard Business Review, human factors in mechanical engineering and an international standard on product usability that's not worth the money. 
• Awards - I blogged on the unique experience of judging both the IDEA awards and the ID Magazine Annual Design Review in the same year.  Also, read about the IDEA award winners in the research category.
• Ergonomics- I put together the FoRCePS guidelines for observing ergonomic problems during contextual observation.

...okay, my link pen ran out.

New Design and Human Factors Blogs

A pair of relatively new blogs have come to my attention - you may want to check them out yourself:

• the Human Factors Blog- As the name says, this is a blog that covers human factors topics, but seems to primarily focus on interface and usability issues.  Recent posts have included a discussion on interface design for "hypermiling", the practice of maximizing mileage in high mpg vehicles (e.g. like the honda hybrid pictured above).

• Designer's Review of Books- Many blogs (present company included) include relevant book reviews from time to time.  This new blog is exclusively focused on review of design books.  It's only been online for a few weeks, but has a good number of review including some from guest writers (present company included).

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).

Designing the Perfect Grip - Of Handles and Homepages

The handle of a tool or product is a lot like the home page of a web site - they are both the user's primary touch point, allow access to the available functionality, and significantly influence how the overall product or site is perceived. 

Another important similarity is that even though thousands of handles and home pages have been designed, there is always a challenge when creating a new one.  This is understandable for home pages as there is so much variability in terms of content, information architecture and interaction design options.  But it's surprising for handles, as they have been around (in both natural and man-made forms) for thousands of years - you would think we would have gotten it right by now.

In fact there are recognized guidelines for handle design - for example NIOSH's guide for hand tools includes recommendations on handle diameter, grip span, etc.  But there is also great variability in handle design depending on the user population's range of physical characteristics, the particular task context (e.g. wearing gloves) and the product materials, to name a few.  So any guidelines are going to be a compromise across a set of these characteristics.  And note these metrics tend to focus on anthropometric fit, which does not always correlate directly with the user's perceived comfort.

It's important to keep up with changes in data and guidelines.  One of the key dimensions in handle design is circumference.  The NIOSH guide suggest a range of 1.25 to 2 inches (about 31.75 to 50.8mm).  A new study published in the October issue of Human Factors has looked at this issue in more detail.  Investigation of Grip Force, Normal Force, Contact Area, Hand Size and Handle Size for Cylindrical Handles is the very descriptively worded title.  They take a detailed look at the how and why of finger anthropometrics and geometry impacting effective grip:

"For a small handle diameter,finger flexion results in skin folding and reduced contact with a handle.  For a large handle diameter, the handle surface may not fit into the curvature of the finger because gripping flexes the fingertip."

At the end of the article, a rare find - a specific numeric recommendation is given: "the mean optimal handle diameter can be calculated to be 40mm". 

Now before you go designing all handles with a 40mm diameter, keep in mind that this is optimized around a simple cylindrical handle - and its based off of US Air Force hand measurement data from 1971.  Like all anthropometric guidelines, take with a grain of salt - use it as a starting point, but build rough models to evaluate fit with an appropriate range of representative users.  In other words, the same user-centered design process that you would use to create any artifact - like a web site home page.

Interactive Video Object Manipulation

Interactive Video Object Manipulation from Dan Goldman on Vimeo.

Back from Thanksgiving break and excited to share an interesting video tool demo.  Easier to see than explain, these not-yet-available functions allow what I would describe as direct video manipulation. 

For design research and human factors analysis, relevant capabilities include annotating objects and people and tracking motion.  These features are surprisingly similar to some of the user interface tools in the FieldCREW research workstation concept.

Thanks to the IXDA discussion board for the tip.

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.

DEFHUM - Research Tech Bullets

A brief round-up of several recent technology-related items:

• Jess McMullin's posting, 10 Cameras for Design Research is a thoughtful set of recommendations for selecting specific cameras for field research.  McMullin focuses on still camera with attention to practical issues such as light sensitivity and multi-functionality: "a camera that can do double duty and shoot video significantly expands your options for data collection by just adding a few extra memory cards. Keep in mind that video takes a lot of time to analyze. A lot. Hours of video can mean days of analysis."
  
• And speaking of cameras, I came across the Spy Pass Card Micro Camera.  Don't know what to expect in terms of image quality, but it would definitely come in handy for walking trade shows.
  
• Earlier this year I mentioned the forthcoming Fitbit as a potential tool for tracking human motion for research purposes.  Now there's SNIF Tag, a canine equivalent (pictured).  Then again, there's no reason why you couldn't wear the SNIF while your canine sports the Fitbit.