02.02.2010
Mark Dezelon /
Interaction Design /
Web & Software
An interactive prototype is a useful tool for a designer to relay and test their vision. Send a prototype to your stakeholders for their approval. Have participants use it during user testing. Give it to your developers so they understand the final product.
There are many prototyping tools out there, from Visio to iRise, OmniGraffle to SketchFlow, Flash to Expression Blend, all with widely varying costs, features and limitations. Might I suggest using HTML, CSS and JavaScript? Often used for web development, they can also be used to create your interactive prototypes.
Read more »
09.28.2009
Mark Dezelon /
Consumer Products /
Human Factors /
Industrial Design /
News /
User Research
HumanCentric contributed to an article on industrial design in the September issue of Appliance Design magazine. Dr. Barry Beith, founder and CEO, along with Brian Chiarizia, IDSA, Manager of Industrial Design, and Dr. Christina Mendat, Manager and Senior Human Factors Specialist, contributed their thoughts to the importance of functionality and human factors when it comes to product design of professional and commercial appliances.
In the article titled Design that Means Business by Steve Wichelecki, Brian noted that the size and use of many professional/commercial appliances have potential safety hazards that must be considered in the product’s functionality. Barry added to that by stating, “regardless of whether the design of a professional/commercial or consumer appliance is in question, products need to be safe, perform to consumer quality expectations, and be intuitive/easy to learn.”
Christina expands on the approach of designing appliances by discussing various methods to uncover user needs. “Within each area there will be a great amount of variability in terms of day-to-day interaction, pain points and general perceptions; therefore, it is important that research involve as many participants as possible, collecting both qualitative and quantitative data.” She cites ethnography and task analysis as methods for understanding user needs.
Brian and Christina represent the complimentary skill sets of design and research at HumanCentric, where the integration of these disciplines is leveraged on all projects for a variety of clients in the following domains: consumer products, transportation, telecom, web/software and medical. While at HumanCentric, Brian and Christina have partnered on such diverse products as small cooking appliances, a dry powder inhaler, a zero-turn lawn mower and a next-generation gaming console interface.
Appliance Design is a publication with a focus on design and engineering in the appliance industry. For more information, read the full article at http://tinyurl.com/yapq4p5.
08.08.2009
Mark Dezelon /
Consumer Products /
Industrial Design /
Medical /
News
HumanCentric is pleased to announce a new strategic partnership formed today with Stander, Inc. Founded by Jan Miller in 1998, Stander is a manufacturer of innovative mobility solutions for beds, bathrooms, couches, and automobiles. The new partnership brings together the core disciplines of human factors, product design and usability, which help create desirable and easy-to-use assistive products such as bed rails, walkers, canes and grab-bars.
“The aging baby boomer generation will soon need (and demand) assistive devices that are well-designed, attractive and able to fit into their active lifestyles. Stander’s commitment to excellence in product design and customer service makes it a natural choice to form a partnership. Our collective product design teams and researchers help fine-tune designs that are in the planning stages, so that the best designs are ultimately put into the hands of millions,” said Barry Beith, Ph.D., CEO and Chief Technical Officer, HumanCentric.
“Stander is committed to bringing new assistive technologies to the aging community. Our customers, ‘the baby boomers,’ demand high quality products that are functional and aesthetically pleasing. HumanCentric’s researched-based designs give a focus to safety and usability. Combined with Stander’s commitment to excellence and listening to our customers needs, this joint venture is a recipe for success. We are honored to be in partnership with HumanCentric,” said Jan Miller, President of Stander Inc.
07.10.2009
Mark Dezelon /
ActionScript /
Flash
When we built the HumanCentric website, we wanted to take advantage of Flash’s animation and drawing capabilities. However we didn’t want to alienate search engines (“Search Engine Optimization”, or “SEO”) and users who do not have Flash or JavaScript enabled. We took advantage of SWFObject, SWFAddress and PHP, and we devised a method for showing the same content regardless of browser capability.
Read more »
06.18.2009
Mark Dezelon /
Human Factors /
News /
Usability /
User Research
Jon Howarth published in the June 2009 issue of the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies an article titled “Supporting novice usability practitioners with usability engineering tools”.
The article describes an approach to addressing difficulties experienced by novice usability practitioners.
Abstract: Although usability practitioners have successfully applied usability engineering processes to increase the usability of interaction designs, the literature suggests that usability practitioners experience a number of difficulties that negatively impact the effectiveness of their work, which in turn affects the effectiveness of the usability engineering processes within which they work. These difficulties include identifying and recording critical usability data and understanding and establishing relationships among usability data. These difficulties are particularly pronounced for novice usability practitioners. One approach to addressing these difficulties is through appropriate usability engineering tool support. We argue that existing usability engineering tools offer excellent support for helping experienced usability practitioners more efficiently do their jobs, but they provide little support for helping novice usability practitioners more effectively do their jobs. We introduce a tool feature, usability problem instance records, to better support novice usability practitioners. We describe the results of a study of this feature, which suggest that the feature helps to improve two aspects of the effectiveness of novice usability practitioners: reliability and quality.
The article is available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2009.02.003.
06.10.2009
Mark Dezelon /
ActionScript /
Flash /
Interaction Design /
Web & Software
When dynamically loading different color variations of the same graphic, Flash developers can use flash.filters.ColorMatrixFilter to lessen website loading times. Below is an example of how we use ColorMatrixFilter in our own website.
Among other specialties, I develop Flash prototypes and websites. In fact, I’m part of the team that built the HumanCentric website. And one aspect that’s important to me is the time it takes a user to load individual parts of a website. For example, if a user goes directly to one of our pages, their browser will retrieve a pre-loading Flash application, a main Flash application, a site xml description, a page-specific xml description, and any images specific to that page.
Read more »
