Transcript for EO403 - Human Factors-Qualitative Methods 2.PDF

Graduate Apprenticeship - Engineering Design and Manufacture Class: EO403 - Design for X Human Factors-Qualitative Methods 2 In this video, we're going to look at two qualitative methods of understanding the user, empathic modelling and ethnography. Empathic modelling was first pioneered by Patrici...

Graduate Apprenticeship - Engineering Design and Manufacture Class: EO403 - Design for X Human Factors-Qualitative Methods 2 In this video, we're going to look at two qualitative methods of understanding the user, empathic modelling and ethnography. Empathic modelling was first pioneered by Patricia Moore. She was a designer who worked in New York. Around the late '70s to '80s, Patricia, aged about 20ish, travelled across North America dressed as an 85-year-old woman to experience the designed world from an elderly person's perspective. During her travels, she would interact with people, she would interact with the public transport, with buildings and products, and her diaries and her findings express what it's like to be an elderly person at that time. Patricia restricted her joints, her hearing, and her vision in order to empathise with elderly users, so from a sensory and a physical perspective, she was an elderly person. Empathic modelling itself is about observing and simulation. It's about putting yourself in the shoes of that particular user. We can record and we can analyse the information that we collect. We can also reflect on our own experience when we are empathising others. Empathic modelling is a very good way to come up with creative solutions purely because we're able to understand the user better. Whilst we are simulating other users, we can develop prototypes of possible solutions. We can interact with those solutions. We might be limiting particular abilities, like hands, hearing, eyesight, and so on. Empathic modelling involves the designer spending a lot of time with users in everyday situations, in real-life situations, and taking notes and recording opinions, interactions, and so on. Things like audio can be recorded, notes can be taken, photography can be used, sketching and video can also be used to capture the real-world interactions that a user might have with the particular product areas that we're investigating. Empathic modelling is very useful for a designer to understand how others feel. This is a case study in empathic modelling. It is known as the Third Age Suit. When Ford were designing their cars, they used what they called the third age suit. The third age suit is a suit worn by a designer or a person in order to understand a user of a different ability, of a different age. It was used in the design and the development of the Ford Focus in order to improve cabin access and visibility. This suit could be worn, and it would simulate the loss of physical mobility. It would reduce strength and limb flexibility by about 20%, thereby allowing the designer or the researcher an opportunity to find out how difficult or how easy it was to step in or out of the car and to move about the cabin. It also was used in a qualitative capacity to empathise with the experience of the elderly or those with impaired abilities. So research was carried out, focus groups were held in order for people to give their feedback on what it was like to be impaired within the car. Page 1/2 It was also used in a quantitative capacity, where in a lab-based situation, numerical measurements of several of the interactions within the cabin could be taken and then fed back to the designers. So here in the case study of the use of the third age suit in the redesign and the development of the Ford Focus in terms of the cabin access and visibility, we see that empathic modelling has been very useful. It has helped the designers understand how particular age groups would be able to use the car, it has also given very in-depth qualitative research in terms of feedback from the users, which allows the designers to develop the product further. And finally, the quantitative data can help numerically improve those interactions. You, too, can carry out some basic empathic modelling. It usually involves restricting particular aspects of the human body, for example, taping joints on hands or knees or arms in order to simulate arthritis or elderly joints. You might wear gloves in order to simulate poor touch. You might use earplugs in order to simulate loss of hearing, and you might use particular visual lenses that simulate visual impairment. Several of these lenses that simulate visual impairment can be downloaded from the Royal National Institute for the Blind's website. Another set of qualitative methods to understand the user are design ethnography methods, and these include non participant observation and participant observation. To understand the user, notes can be taken, observations can be undertaken, and the designer will be able to understand better particular functions or operations as the user interacts with particular products. You can be a non-participant observer. You can stand back, you can take notes, you can video, and so on, or you can be a participant observer, actually taking part in the particular activity. Further methods include semi-structured interviews and unstructured interviews or video capture. All of these methods help us to understand the user much better. They help us to understand the user, they give us quality feedback, they give us an insight into user's thoughts and feelings about particular products and interactions with those. We have looked at a few qualitative methods to understand the user, and there are many more, but they are invaluable to the designer and the researcher in understanding the user and how they interact with the product or how they carry out a particular activity. They certainly help us to design as part of the product development process. They certainly give us a better understanding and help us to kick start the product development process. Page 2/2