This paper explores theoretical issues in ergonomics related to semantics and the emotional content of design. The aim is to find answers to the following questions: how to design products triggering "happiness" in one's mind; which product attributes help in the communication of positive emotions; and finally, how to evoke such emotions through a product. In other words, this is an investigation of the "meaning" that could be designed into a product in order to "communicate" with the user at an emotional level. A literature survey of recent design trends, based on selected examples of product designs and semantic applications to design, including the results of recent design awards, was carried out in order to determine the common attributes of their design language. A review of Good Design Award winning products that are said to convey and/or evoke emotions in the users has been done in order to define good design criteria. These criteria have been discussed in relation to user emotional responses and a selection of these has been given as examples.
Recent studies have shown that people prefer to age in their familiar environments, thus guiding designers to provide a safe and functionally appropriate environment for ageing people, regardless of their physical conditions or limitations. Therefore, a participatory design model is proposed where human beings can improve their quality of life by promoting independence, as well as safety, useability and attractiveness of the residence. Brainstorming, scenario building, unstructured interviews, sketching and videotaping are used as techniques in the participatory design sessions. Quality deployment matrices are employed to find the relationships between the elderly user's requirements and design specifications. A case study was devised to apply and test the conceptual model phase of the proposed model.
participatory design is a design methodology, European in origin, giving an important contributory role to the end-user in the development of products they would eventually use. This paper presents a study (Demirbilek, 1999) in which elderly end-users were invovled in the design process by means of participatory design sessions. In these sessions, the expertise of designers and the comments and ideas of elderly end-users were applied to how doors and door handles for domestic use should be designed. Two different design sessions were run for each group of elderly end-users.
Participatory Design Sessions
Characteristics of the Sample of Elderly End-usersThe participatory design sessions were held with potential end-users, each consisting of 3-6 elderly people, mostly widowed, male and female over 65, from the city of Ankara. Random sampling was used among a group of volunteers. A pilot session was conducted with 4 elderly participants (one male and three females between 68 and 75 years old), at the end of which the participatory design session was revised. A sample of 13 potential elderly end-users forming 3 different groups (see Figure 20.1) took part, each completing both participatory design sessions. S. A. R. Scrivener et al. (eds.), Collaborative Design
The study aims to develop energy conscious dwellings in climatic conditions of Ankara. Since the computer program SUNCODE-PC is used for the thermal performance analysis, an hourly climatic data set for an average year has been prepared. Two design proposals are developed and compared: one of them is designed with conventional features and the other is designed energy consciously. Improvement studies are conducted on the energy conscious design.
Based on the concept of 'aging in place', a prescriptive model is proposed, aiming at the creation of a usable, safe and attractive built environment where the elderly residents are actively involved in the design process through collaboration sessions. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) has been adapted to develop an evaluation and translation method for the collected data of the elderly ena'-users..
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