High Touch: Human Factors in New Product Design

1996 ◽  
Vol 40 (7) ◽  
pp. 401-405
Author(s):  
Myun W. Lee ◽  
Myung Hwan Yun ◽  
Jong Soo Lee
Keyword(s):  
Human Factors ◽  
Product Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Consumer Product ◽  
User Friendliness ◽  
Conceptual Design Phase ◽  
Analysis Scheme ◽  
Potential Demand ◽  
New Consumer ◽  
Technology Attributes

In designing a new consumer product, integration of human factors principles is greatly emphasized. However, relatively few attempts have been made to systematically include ergonomic design in the conceptual design phase. High Touch is a product design strategy that uses existing technology systematically to design a new consumer product emphasizing user-friendliness and customer satisfaction. To realize this objective, High Touch design uses several analysis scheme such as identification of implicit needs, realization of potential demand and systematic application of ergonomic considerations into product design. Hierarchical analysis of human variables, product functions and technology attributes is the basic tool of the High Touch design. In this paper, High Touch design process is introduced and a series of new products developed using High Touch design process is demonstrated.

An Assessment of Industrial Designers Use of Human Factors Criteria in Product Design Evaluation

1988 ◽  
Vol 32 (6) ◽  
pp. 420-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamran Abedini
Keyword(s):  
Human Factors ◽  
Product Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Design Evaluation ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Cad System ◽  
Actual Application ◽  
Chi Square Test ◽  
Industrial Designers

In order to know the pattern of actual application of human factors criteria by industrial designers an experiment was conducted by asking 87 students of industrial design to evaluate a CAD workstation after completing a course in “human factors in design”. The guidelines chosen for the evaluation were those related to design of visual displays, controls and workstation layout on the CAD system. Since the main objective was to see how many of the principles had become part of their “common sense” they were asked to evaluate the equipment without any reference to any books/notes. The subject's responses were compared with the human factors guidelines using a Chi-square test (0.05 significance). The results pointed out that industrial designers readily accepted general criteria such as visibility, operability, and accessibility but interpretability of the display was frequently unrecognized. Such information could be used by industrial designers and human factors experts to improve their cooperation in the design process and thus increase the acceptance and marketability of the product.

Consumer Product Design Projects for Human Factors Classes

1982 ◽  
Vol 26 (8) ◽  
pp. 735-739 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Kreifeldt
Keyword(s):  
Human Factors ◽  
Product Design ◽  
Consumer Product ◽  
Human Factors Engineering ◽  
Educational Approach ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
General Relevance ◽  
Limited Applicability ◽  
Design Projects

Consumer product design projects are described as they have been used at Tufts University so that student teams may practice human factors design in a realistic, verifiable context. Experience over the years with engineering and psychology students supports this educational approach and the realworld observation that most human factors data is of general relevance but limited applicability to the design problems and that human factors engineering is an integrated activity.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document