usability art

usability art - Transcript

U sability The New Dimensioi

Rejected Model Thomson s first remote control design differed little from the competition s rectangular boxes with rows of 5mall identical buttons most often black on black

Working Model The n e ergonomic design used color coded soft touch rubber buttons in distinctive sizes ond shapes

by Artemis March
The mission of industrial design has traditionally been to support engineering and marketing by improving tbe look and feel of a product Designers have imparted style simplicity or beauty to products tbat might otherwise have appeared clunky and ordinary But a handful of pioneering companies such as Thomson Consumer Electronics Apple Computer and Northern Telecom are extending the parameters of design pushing to tbe forefront sometbing tbat has heen an afterthought at most companies a product s usability The new designers have expanded what usability means to cover several dimensions of people s interactions with products In traditional design usability largely concerned ergonomics tbat is erabodying in physical forms knowledge about bow people reaeh for pick up carry bold operate sit in and otherwise use artifacts But user centered design goes beyond that definition to encompass the
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cognitive aspects of using and interacting with a product or how logical and natural a product is to use as well as tbe emotional aspects or how people feel ahout using it For example is tbe product frustrating to operate or does it invite use and provide an enjoyable experience User centered designers try to understand tbose interactions the dynamic space between user and product and translate their understanding into a product s form To that end they draw on field tests of prototypes psychological models of cognitive processes and a wide range of other methods including observations of how people compensate for deficiencies in existing products Some companies that have established user centered design groups have begun to articulate bow to incorporate this broader definition of usability into tbeir products Admittedly this is no easy task The new dimensions deal with feelings about experiPHOTOS BY BRUCE T MARTIN

f Product Design
Final Model VCR and TV buttons were separated above and below the keypad

Production Model With minor revisions this model became the basis for the design of most of Thomson s remote control units

ences that defy concrete definitions for instance about how a car handles In a first attempt at pinning down its concept of usability Thomson has declared that all its entertainment products must be engaging foster a sense of diseovery and eliminate fear And Northern Telecom has defined usability as simplicity ease of use and conspicuous customer value For many companies the shift to user centered design will require the expansion of their design groups to include people with backgrounds in computer science cognitive psychology and visual design as well as traditional industrial designers Many companies will also have to rethink and reorganize the design process and elevate their design groups to put them on a par with other functionsto ensure that usability is designed into the product from the outset With the gap between competing products narrowing in terms of performance and
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quality the experience that a product delivers is rapidly becoming the key to offering distinctive value to the customer

The System Link Universal Remote
Thomson first discovered that user centered design could give it a significant advantage over its competitors in 1988 with the development of its highly successful System Link an ergonomically oriented remote control that can operate various types of products made by different manufacturers System Link s success millions of the units have
Artemis March is a consultant based in Cambridge Massachusetts whose work focuses on transforming organizational systems primarily through product and process design The research for this article was sponsored hy the Design Management Institute and funded in part hy the National Endowment for the Arts 145

USABILITY

Design Model This base design for the PowerBook vi as refined over many design test cycles





Working Model This preproject model containei the features around which Apple s future PowerBook would evolve large centered trackball p alm rest and internal disk drive

been sold built eredibility for the company s design group and convinced many skeptics inside Thomson that people are willing to pay for usability Designed for Thomson s RCA brand the System Link remote control has buttons of different colors shapes and sizes that make it easy to use even in a dark room The rounded edges of the base and the soft rubber buttons make the unit comfortable to hold and operate And providing additional ease of use the VCR buttons are clustered separately from the television buttons The separate clustering among other features of the remote might not have been possible bad the development team followed Thomson s traditional approach to design in which the design group s work followed the layout of the eireuitry In this instance the electrical engineers offered to modify the circuitry in the final design in order to separate the VCR buttons from the television buttons 146

This kind of teamwork was deemed so successful that Thomson changed the standard design process used in its development projects Today the design group which for the first time reports directly to Thomson s chairman does its work first with input on feasibility and alternatives from the rest of the multifunctional development team Only then do the electrical and mechanical engineers proceed with their work

The PowerBook 140 170
Coming up with a winning product concept often is not the outcome of a neat orderly process Indeed sometimes the most successful concepts emerge gradually from a series of exchanges both between the development team and targeted customers and among the members of the team Apple s PowerBook 140 170 was the result of such a
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Engineering Model Trackball size button shapes and their placement were tested extensively for usability

Final Model The PowerBoak 140 170 a seven pound notebook introduced n October 1991 became o billion dollar business in its first year

process of learning by doing Thanks to the PowerBook s design including ease of use ergonomics fit and finish Apple sold 400 000 units in the computer s first year The PowerBook became a billiondollar business overnight After the 1989 failure of its 17 pound Mac Portable Apple was under intense time pressure to secure a solid foothold in the computer notebook market 7 pounds or less The driving force hehind the product concept at the outset of the PowerBook project WAS simply to get to market the best small computer possible within 18 months Tbe definitive PowerBook concept evolved during seven cycles of designing huilding a prototype field testing that prototype and trying to incorporate tbe feedback into the next design This iterative process enabled Apple designers to discover the cognitive and emotional themes tbat would become the essence of tbe prodtiet and to translate
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tbose themes into the details of the actual design One critical quality tbat emerged was portability usability in a variety of environments including for example an airplane seat A second was object value tbe designers came to realize that for users a notebook constituted a personal object an extension of the user not a pieee of business equipment In the end Apple discovered that it wasn t simply designing a small computer Rather through its design of the Power Book it was telling a story about portability and object value Apple s belief that usability is of paramount importance led to its choice of two components tbat turned out to he critical to the PowerBook s broad appeal One was an internal disk drive whicb most users want in a portable computer the other was a large trackball for fine motor control of the cursor Tbere was one problem bowever hoth components added size and weight In order to uphold its
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USABILITY

Stereolithographk Model Because speakerphones are very sensitive to shape and space Narthern Telecom had to test the phone s audio extensively using models like this one Final Model The Vista 25O s features include caller identification and call waiting identification The 250 and 350 modules are interchcingeable

commitment to usability the development team decided to reduce other internal components to meet the size and weight targets

The Vista 250 350 Modular Phone
It is one thing for a given development team to come up with a powerful product concept that incorporates usahility But it is quite another for a company to accomplish this time and time again By empowering its design function and making it a full partner in the development process Northern Telecom was able to do just that it created a powerful design that could serve as a foundation for a family of interactive screen phones and developed a design process that could be used to create other new produet concepts In 1992 Northern Telecom s CEO decided to elevate the importance of the design group which had
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heen essentially a support organization that provided services to others in the company Believing that Northern Telecom was grossly underutilizing design as a competitive weapon the CEO gave the group a mandate to redefine its role As a result the design group made itself accountable for ensuring that the company s products distinguished themselves in terms of their design including usability The group further concluded that the guiding principles of usability should be simplicity ease of use and conspicuous customer value The newly empowered design group then asked the multifunctional development team that was developing the interactive phone to reassess its design Under the new standards the team concluded the current design was inadequate Among other things the screen was too small Following extensive discussions about what customers value the team identified two key characHARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW Sept ember October 1994

Detail The large stand alone button that turns an the speakerphane draws attention ta itself at the base af the speaker

Detail Soft keys alla one Final Model The Vista 350 has a larger screen display than the 250 and six soft keys for more sophisticated transaction services button to perform multiple functions

tehstics flexibility and the ability to leverage an investment Users they reasoned wanted to be able to upgrade their phones without getting an entirely new machine In addition Northern Telecom and its customers the telephone operating companies wanted to leverage their investment by offering a hasic platform that could provide access to a variety of services and incorporate innovations that might come down the pike The solution modularity The base of the resulting phone the Vista 250 330 is a platform with interchangeable modules that offers different packages of services such as flashing tbe number of a second caller while tbe user is on the line The development team s determination to deliver on the three principles of usahility led to the incorporation of among otber things a large screen that could easily be read from a variety of angles and distances and under a variety of lighting condiHARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW September October 1994

tions It also prompted the team to make immediately apparent tbe value of tbe macbine s speakerphone which delivers commercial quality audio Tbe result was the large rounded speaker that gives the product its distinctive profile as well as tbe big stand alone button in the lower corner that turns on tbe speakerphone User centered design is still in its infancy Few companies have gone as far as Thomson Apple and Northern Telecom in articulating the dimensions of ergonomic cognitive and emotional usability tbat guide a product s design Companies can begin by articulating tbe usability themes most appropriate for them and interpreting what those themes mean for individual product families Ultimately user centered design can help a company forge a unifying identity for its products Reprint 94507
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