06.14.2010
Barry Beith /
Design Research /
Ergonomics /
Human Factors /
Industrial Design /
User Experience /
User Research
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is chartered with protecting the public from bad product design and recalls thousands of cribs due to the inability of some parents to follow directions. Now granted, often many designs and instructions for assembly are so bad as to be flagrant violations of all that is “design holy”, still three to four million cribs. And why, because a handful of children are injured, a smaller number die. Please don’t over-react. I understand the anguish of parents who lose a child or who are feeling guilty because their child was harmed or frightened. I get the anger they feel in this day and age over desperately needing to find the right scapegoat. However, the penalty seems to vastly outweigh the crime here and the solution seems to be all wrong.
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09.29.2009
Andy Hamilton /
Design Research /
Industrial Design /
User Research
Thanks to everyone who made it out of bed and to our presentation at 9 am on Saturday! We appreciated the attentive ears, questions and discussion after the early morning presentation. For those of you who maybe had one too many caipirinhas at Luminaire, or couldn’t make the conference altogether, we wanted to share our paper and presentation with you. While this is a pretty mild substitute for the real deal, together they should give you a pretty good indication of what we were about. Enjoy!
Transparent User-Centered Design on a Dime (PDF, 310 KB)
09.22.2009
Elizabeth Mauer - Former Staffer /
Design Research /
Human Factors /
Industrial Design /
Trends /
User Research
As a human factors practitioner, I completely and whole-heartedly support talking to users as an integral part of the product design process. I think it’s the best way to make sure a product is useful, usable, and desirable (the holy trinity, in my book).
However, I’m not living under a rock. I know these days companies have tighter budgets and even tighter timelines. The pressure is on more so than ever to produce products that will sell while spending the least amount of money developing them. Product teams are looking at their budgets and trying to trim off anything they can do without. Many times it’s easy and tempting for user research to be left out to save money and time in the development process…
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06.29.2009
Elizabeth Mauer - Former Staffer /
Design Research /
Ergonomics /
User Research
Once upon a time, I convinced myself that I could learn to rip out my old floors and install new ones.
I grew up very traditionally where girls vacuumed (boring) and boys got to work with power tools (fun). So I never learned the ins and outs of what I generally call “being handy with tools.” I figured I could learn, though. Since they sell power tools to the general population at many home improvement stores, how hard can it be to use them? (Especially if the store’s motto is, “You can do it, we can help.”)
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06.10.2009
Sogra Nishath /
Design Research /
User Research
Ever heard of a crowd that can actually be of any use? Ever heard of the term “Crowdsourcing”? If you haven’t, then read on…
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