The author says in this article that "every new project is a wonderful new riddle that presents many dilemmas:
- Manufacturing. Sourcing elements (bought off-the-shelf, modified, or developed from the ground up), assembly-line efficiency, human or machine labor, testing, quality assurance, and yield all play into the process.
- Interoperability. A fancy word for compatibility between various pieces, including communication, hardware and software synergy, and simple physical fit.- Usability. The rational part of user-experience—cognitive psychology, ergonomics, demographics, and so on.- Operational efficiency. Can the product be packed, shipped, and delivered effectively? Can it be maintained and serviced? Is it sustainable? Can it be recycled or disassembled easily?
- Business. Among the challenges: building a brand, winning customer loyalty, disrupting competitors, and arriving at the right time to market with the right price tag and the right strategic outlook on the world.
- Standards. Be it regulatory requirements, internal policies, or industry standards, every object made today has to stand up to and be qualified against a long list of rules.
- Cultural grounding. Is it new? Is it exciting? Is it beautiful? How do we make it lovable? Is it a good citizen? "
Honestly AJ, in your many years of experience in the past as an electronics/ domestic appliance designer how often have you:
1. Considered usability as a designer? Been asked to consider usability, and if you did how did you consider it?
2. Who gave you the usability data?
3. Did you ever observe users? Did you consider who might use your product?
4. Operational efficiency beyond the now - did you have the mandate to think sustainability? Post-production, in temrs of out-of-box experience?
5. Cultural grounding? How often did you have a cultural immersion to know whether your product would be 'grounded'? How often was its success a fluke? How often do products also just get stacked on shelves and bought simply because of an unbeatable price point - making marketing feel their company has 'sustainable market share'? PJ
Well, good questions and frankly - yes and no. 1. We sure consider usability and specific studies are usually done during concepts testing handling and function of various designs. But funnily enough this is one area which will be compromised first when cost becomes an issue.
ReplyDelete2. various sources to be honest, but i did exist.
3. not as much as i want to and of course it should be considered who uses the product
4. not myself.. bigger corporates usually have people for that
5. also here.. not as often as needed
Interesting to 'consider' usability after the product is produced and a prototype - the natural tendency would then be to force fit rather than meet unmet need of the user. Acts more as validation (justification) rather than design.
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