Jos Thalen

On the development of electronic design tools and associated guidelines for supporting the early stages of the design process

According to the user-centred design (UCD) philosophy, users should be involved as much as possible in the different stages of the design process, to optimize the likelihood that design proposals will be appreciated by users. In this paper, first we consider some challenges and questions that are raised by this general guideline. Next, we summarize outcomes of an ongoing project that addresses the question of when and how to involve the user in the design process. We report UCD opinions and practices in industry. In addition, we present work in progress aiming to develop tools and guidelines that should support design departments in industry to develop design proposals that optimize the fit-to-context. This includes a study investigating the effects of realism and animation of concept representations on user feedback. These studies help us to get a better understanding of when and how to involve users in the design process.

Facilitating User Involvement in Product Design Through Virtual Reality

The product development process (PDP) generally involves a sequence of gathering requirements, conceptual design, engineering, manufacturing and finally a market release. Successful product development depends on collaboration and communication between stakeholders (e.g. designers and engineers, but also end-users, marketeers or managers) throughout the phases in the development process. Tools that support this communication and collaboration primarily focus on internal communication. For instance, sketches and drawings facilitate communication between designers, CAD models facilitate communication between engineers and presentations or reports are used for communication between departments. Supporting external communication (i.e. communication between people inside the development process and people outside the process) is more challenging because external stakeholders (such as end-users or customers) are usually not trained in being involved in a PDP.

Engaging users in the early phases of the design process: attitudes, concerns and challenges from industrial practice

Product design is no longer solely driven by functionality. Usability and pleasure increasingly determine the success of a product. To address these emerging consumer needs, design literature offers various tools and methods for engaging end-users in the early phases of the design process. The study presented in this paper compares the state of the art in literature to design practice, represented by four different companies. During four separate studies the authors conducted extensive interviews throughout the companies to identify various user engagement methods, related challenges and pitfalls. The methods have been categorised according to the medium through which users provide information, namely what users say, what users do and what users make. The result of this categorisation shows that companies primarily involve users by finding out what users say, using interviews and surveys. Only few occurrences of the other two categories were found. We identified the company culture as one of the limiting factors for engaging users in the design process. Companies prefer to rely on experience rather than end-user input, or in some cases simply do not acknowledge the importance of user engagement. Another limiting factor is the lack of awareness and knowledge regarding user engagement; companies do not know when to use which method or how to integrate the generated output in their design process. External factors, such as concerns about confidentiality of the new ideas and client-company relation are other factors that hinder the engagement of users in the early phases of the design process. The paper concludes with a set of opportunities that can be addressed to improve user engagement in the early stages of the design process.

Selecting Virtual Reality Tools in relation with their use context

The market of virtual reality techniques, tools and solutions is increasing fast, and more people are getting access to those items. Nevertheless, an integral approach for making a well-founded selection and/or combination is lacking. This publication outlines initial explorations and implementations that will lead to an adaptive platform that enables the effective and efficient integration of virtual reality tools and techniques in product development processes.

Virtual Personas: A Case Study on Truck Cabin Design

User involvement can help designers reach beyond functionality and usability, and identify the user’s deeper needs for a pleasurable product experience. In practice, direct user involvement can be limited by a lack of knowledge of appropriate techniques, confidentiality constraints or limited access to end-users. Alternatively, personas can be used as a substitute for direct user involvement. Personas, however, often end up as posters in the hallway of a design department without being used, for instance because personas are not sufficiently realistic, or because the personas are insufficiently communicated within the design department. This paper presents a case study featuring Virtual Personas. This application allows designers to create and review use scenarios in a virtual world, featuring digital avatars. Although the application has been successfully deployed, it was found that additional effort is required for designers to really reach beyond the level of functionality and usability.

User centred methods for gathering VR design tool requirements

This paper addresses the use of VR to facilitate design tasks in the early stages of a product design process. A preliminary exploratory study, involving over thirty interviews amongst four industrial partners, revealed only few occurrences of VR being used in the early stages of design. While the potential benefits of the applications are generally acknowledged, product designers lack the appropriate design tools that allow them to quickly and easily create the application. The research presented in this paper applies user-centred design principles to identify requirements for useful, usable and accessible VR design tools. The primary challenge in gathering such requirements is the lack of experience product designers generally have with VR technologies; product designers can not provide reliable requirements for tools they have never seen or used. We present a sequence of three concrete steps that provide product designers with sufficient information to express tool requirements, without developing extensive prototypes. The three methods have been developed and applied in an industrial case study, as part of a larger research project. The paper outlines this research context, the three methods and the lessons learned from the case study.

Creating useful, usable and accessible VR design tools: an EUD-based approach

Virtual Reality (VR) tools create an alternative reality in which worlds, objects and characters can be experienced that may not yet be experienced in reality. As such, VR can help product designers in the early stages of the product development process with evaluating virtual product concepts. The current set of VR tools and VR development toolkits however targets programmers and computer experts rather than product designers, thus limiting the adoption of this technology in the field of product design. The research presented in this paper applies End-User Development (EUD) principles to let designers describe, create and evaluate VR design tools that are useful, usable and accessible.