Kanis H
School of Industrial Design Engineering, Department of Ergonomics, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.
Appl Ergon. 1998 Feb;29(1):75-82. doi: 10.1016/s0003-6870(97)00028-8.
Prospective users of a new design in the area of everyday products offer innumerable opportunities for measurement and observation, in view of both the diversity in user populations and the freedom of where and how to use a product. In this paper, the relevance of human data is assessed for their impact in meeting functional imperatives in a design. On the basis of empirical studies, the significance of the observation/registration of user activities, including perceptual and cognitive activities, and the use of actions actually carried out is demonstrated. For everyday products, these activities are found to be only loosely related to human characteristics such as sensory capacities, body dimensions and exertable forces. Such characteristics seem to combine a limited relevance for usage centred design with relatively easy measurability. In contrast, observation of user activities may be evasive and is often laborious. User trialling is seen as an obvious way to enable designers to accommodate prospective user activities in everyday product design.
鉴于日常产品领域新设计的潜在用户群体具有多样性，且使用产品的地点和方式较为自由，这为测量和观察提供了无数机会。本文评估了人体数据在满足设计功能要求方面的相关性。基于实证研究，证明了观察/记录用户活动（包括感知和认知活动）以及实际执行的动作的重要性。对于日常产品而言，发现这些活动与诸如感官能力、身体尺寸和可施加力量等人体特征仅有松散的关联。这些特征对于以使用为中心的设计而言相关性有限，但测量起来相对容易。相比之下，观察用户活动可能难以捉摸且往往费力。用户试用被视为使设计师能够在日常产品设计中考虑潜在用户活动的一种明显方式。
