02.25.2010
Miranda Capra /
Human Factors /
Usability
I ran into the flight status screens below at an airport in New York City on my way home to North Carolina. My husband and I stared at these screens for several minutes, looking for our flight and trying not to panic that it had been canceled. Then an airport employee walked past and pointed out that they were not in service. How did both of us miss the NOT IN SERVICE sign taped prominently between the two screens? The sign was right in front of us, but it wasn’t near our place of focus, the actual TV screen, and the writing in pen was hard to see from a distance.
There are so many things that could have made this better: write with a marker, stick it to the middle of the screen, cover the screens with paper, perhaps even turn off the broken screens, if that’s not too much to ask? When something like this happens at home or in a small office everyone just knows to ignore it, but in a public setting a sign like that has to scream so that even idiots like me will notice it.
01.04.2010
Leigh McClure /
Human Factors /
Transportation /
Usability
While on the phone with one of my friends who is expecting, I learned something that I found very interesting. It turns out that about 90% of car seats are improperly installed by new parents, even when they use the instructions! I was shocked and a little appalled. My first thought was, why is it so hard/confusing to use a car seat? This is a life-saving device and you would think that manufacturers would want to implement a fool proof way to secure the seat in the vehicle.
Read more »
11.23.2009
Sean Farres /
Creativity /
Design Inspiration /
Graphic Design /
Green Technology /
Human Factors /
Industrial Design /
Medical /
Trends
One medical brand incorporating good design is Help Remedies. The simplicity is genius. The greatest feature of the medicine is no use of excessive fillers. What stands this product out even more is the packaging. Its main message is how it can heal me. What I like even more is that the packaging can go in the compost. Does your Advil do that?
In-Store Display
11.23.2009
Miranda Capra /
Consumer Products /
Human Factors
A few years ago I bought a new can opener that leaves a smooth edge on the lid of the can so that you don’t have to worry about cutting yourself on the lid. The first time I tried to use it, it took me 10 minutes and I completely mangled the lid of the can in the process. Why? Because the new can opener look very similar to my old one, but worked in a completely different fashion. Let me show you some example can openers to explain what happened.
Read more »
11.13.2009
Sean Farres /
Community Involvement /
Creativity /
Design Inspiration /
Graphic Design /
Green Technology /
Human Factors /
Industrial Design /
Local /
User Research
What a great meeting at the TriUPA & HFES Carolina World Usability Day event. HumanCentric had the opportunity to present our new recycling solution to this year’s design challenge. It goes without saying we were the clear winners in the design challenge (well… we were the only entry, but let’s not get caught up in the details…). The audience was very receptive and had lots of great questions about our process, information graphic and in-home bin prototype. Click here to view our presentation.
Many audience members wanted our solution implemented across the Triangle to jump-start awareness and increase recycling. HumanCentric is very excited about the community support and would love to have our vision for a better recycling system become a reality. If you would like to join our campaign for a greener Triangle please contact Alexander Hussain at HumanCentric. HumanCentric’s next steps are to connect local government officials to present our improved recycling solution.
-
-
Alex presenting our solution
-
-
Information Graphic
-
-
Sean’s demo
10.22.2009
Jon Howarth /
Community Involvement /
Gestural Interfaces /
Human Factors /
User Experience /
User Research
Dr. Dan Mauney and Dr. Miranda Capra gave a presentation at a “works-in-progress” forum on Tuesday, October 20 at 1:30pm at this year’s Annual Conference of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society in San Antonio, TX. Dan and Miranda’s talk was titled “Cultural Influence on Gestural Interface Design”. They described a recent study conducted in association with the International Usability Partners in which they collected user-generated gestures from 40 people in 9 countries for 28 common software commands (e.g. zoom, scroll, cut, copy, rotate).
Dan is releasing regular blog posts about the study at http://www.humancentric.com/GestureResearch.
10.20.2009
Corinna Proctor /
Human Factors
Our very own Mike Maddox, Senior Scientist at HumanCentric was inducted as a Fellow to HFES at this morning’s opening plenary session. Check out Mike in all of his glory. Mike is flanked by Miranda Capra and Barry Beith who are each presenting at this year’s conference. Congrats, Mike!!
10.13.2009
Miranda Capra /
Human Factors
Last month, the FDA issued a public health alert about Potential Medication Errors with Tamiflu Oral Suspension. Doctors in the US typically prescribe dosages for liquid drugs in terms of teaspoons. However, the eye dropper that comes with the medication has doses listed in milliliters. Users that do not realize this difference might under-dose themselves, leading to not being protected from the flu, or over-dosing, which could be potentially fatal, especially for young children. Now that doctors are aware of this problem they can issue dosages in milliliters, assuming that the doctor is able to properly do the conversion math. The best way to solve this would be to have the US using the same measurement system as the rest of the world, but that’s a huge issue all to itself. The next best solution is to have drugs that use the local units, or at least be labeled with both metric and English units…
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.
09.25.2009
Leigh McClure /
Graphic Design /
Human Factors
Dear IKEA Font Haters –
Evidently a war has ensued over IKEA’s switch to Verdana font as opposed to the Futura font that was used in the earlier catalogs. There are a lot of individuals who are “up in arms” about this switch. We decided to take it to the streets (or the cubicles as the case may be) and see what people thought…
Source: geeksugar.com
Read more »
