Returning of a long-past thread of interest (and clearing my "drafts folder"
of a partly completed response):
last Nov 1st Gunnar Swanson <[log in to unmask]> wrote in part in
the Re: [PHD-DESIGN] Design By All thread:
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> I'm not sure how the bad usability of most music equipment (which is
> designed and sold in strong light and used in dim light or darkness)
>
In brief, usability is usually pretty bad, especially when considering the
subset of users with some aged-related sensory, motor and cognitive deficits
- the baby-boomer generation.
I have envisioned, but have no way of producing, a set of software tools for
usability pre-testing that would take 3D CAD and/or photo-real images of
prototypes "designed ... in strong light" (i.e. on high-end engineering
workstations with big monitors by designers with generally younger eyes and
techophilic feature-loving minds behind) and filter the images through a
virtual pair of older eyes looking at ill-lit true-to-life setups of the end
product: the images displayed would be seen to be yellowed a bit, slightly
or perhaps substantially blurred, viewed with a limited depth of focus,
through bifocals, with poorly placed and not too bright light sources
partly obscured by a user's shadow... with the unit stuck in a bookcase
(more shadows) at a likely (but almost certainly non-optimal) height for
viewing the controls .... leading the design team to possibly improve the
product's graphics' size, colours, contrast, placement ... before it hits
the prototyping and production stages.
I'd suggest there might might be in this notion some good research projects,
academic and/or commercial, developing and validating such "through others'
eyes" design tools that would make evident at early design stages some of
the end-users' needs.
Peter
--
Peter G. Zimmer
The RISES Development Project: Alzheimer Disease and the Electric Home
Reduced Instruction Set Enhanced Support(TM) Appliances
6133 Willow St Halifax, NS B3K 1M1 Canada
phone: 902 423 9361 e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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