• Journal of Internet of Things and Convergence
• /
• 제9권2호
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2023

This study was conducted for the purpose of improving the usability of the product through the usability evaluation of the voice tag reader to improve the life convenience of the visually impaired. Perceived usability evaluation was conducted for 19 evaluation items based on the evaluation model considering the usability principle and the characteristics of the visually impaired. A total of 50 participants were included for the analysis. As a result of the perceived usability evaluation of the visually impaired, the safety of the voice tag reader, voice and sound quality, and accuracy of voice information were relatively satisfactory. It was found that the reader received a low evaluation in terms of efficiency in use, including the size and weight of the reader, and the convenience of carrying and storing. For the usability improvement, the procedure for using a product needs to be more simplified, and it would be helpful to input and supply tags for commonly used objects in advance.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
• /
• 제12권1호
• /
• pp.17-24
• /
• 1993

Today, rapid development and timeliness of introducing a new product be- comes a more influencing factor of determing its competitive power due to a shortened product cycle, while rapid improvement of manufacturing technology makes product design and manufacturing fuse together. This implies that prod- uct usability evaluation and improvement starts right from its design phase, resulting in less development time and cost. To make this possible, proper as- sessment of human reach is one of essential functions for ergonomic product us- ability evaluation, specifically in the platform of computer-aided ergonomic evaluation models or any CAD system with a built-in man model. In this study, an analytic reach prediction algorithm ensuring the posture that human naturally takes, is presented by employing the methods developed for robot kinematics. Among robot kinematic methods for solving the multi-link system, the resolved motion method was found to be effective to solve human reach as a redundant manipulator model. Also, the joint range availability was used as a performance fonction to guarantee human naturalness. The result is expected to be directly applicable to product usability evaluations.

• Proceedings of the ESK Conference
• /
• 대한인간공학회 1997년도 추계학술대회논문집
• /
• pp.376-380
• /
• 1997

This paper describes usability evaluation techniques for the human interface of consumer electronic products. The techniques include measures for evaluating the user performance and emotion/impression on the product. Evaluation method for collecting the measures were also surveyed and summarized. Finally, this paper describes a systematic way of finding appropriate methods for collecting a specific measures.

• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
• /
• 제25권3호
• /
• pp.17-28
• /
• 2018

In this paper, an activity-oriented usability model is proposed. The usability model contains two types of characteristics: special-type characteristics of usability and sub-characteristics of usability. Workability, study-ability, and playability are, but do not exhaust, examples of special-type characteristic of usability. They correspond to working, studying, and playing using the software product, respectively. They represent the goal of using and can overlap each other. They are usability too by themselves. Navigate-ability, data-prepare-ability, data-input-ability, response-wait-ability, output-examine-ability, and output-utilize-ability are typical examples of sub-characteristics of usability. They correspond to navigating, preparing data, inputting data, waiting response, examining output, and utilizing the output data, respectively. They are not usability by themselves. They constitute usability together as a group. Assessing is the fundamental and indispensable aspect of quality. Without assessing, the concept of quality has little practical value. Satisfaction, effectiveness, and efficiency are the most typical sub-characteristics of usability in existing quality models, which correspond to the evaluation criteria of usability. In the activity-oriented usability model, however, only the user's satisfaction is included: Satisfaction is regarded as the operational definition of usability in the user's view. As the result, usability can be interpreted as the 'goodness for using, which is evaluated by the user. 'Three fundamental principles regarding software quality models are proposed too in this paper: Principles of Parsimony, Cohesiveness, and Inheritance. Discussions illustrate well that typical existing usability models violate these basic principles. Many authors have tried to define general usability models which can be applied to most kinds of software. The dream of the general and universal usability model, however, may be an illusion. The activity-oriented usability model is expected to serve as a prototype from which specialized usability models can be derived.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
• /
• 제8권1호
• /
• pp.17-28
• /
• 2005

With the advent of computer technology, the fundamental nature of products has shaped from physical forms towards product interactivity, The focus is now on usability of the product with ease and efficiency rather than conversing with just the looks of the product. However, most definitions of usability and contemporary usability-related researches, have focused on the performance-oriented functional aspects of usability (i.e., how well users perform tasks using a product). Today, user expectations are higher; products that bring not only functional benefits but also emotional satisfaction. So far, there have been many studies on human emotions and the emotional side of products in the field of emotional engineering. Contemporary emotion-related researches have focused mainly on the relationship between product aesthetics and the emotional responses elicited by the products, but little is known about emotions elicited from using the products. The main objective of our research is analyzing user's emotional changes while using a product, to reveal the influence of usability on human emotions. In this research, we suggested conceptual framework for the study on the relationship between usability of products, and human emotions with emphasis on mobile phones. We also extracted emotional words for measuring user's emotions expressed not from looking at the product's appearance, but from using the product. First, we assembled a set of emotions that is sufficiently extensive to represent a general overview of the full repertoire of Korean emotions from the literature study. Secondly, we found emotional words in the after note by the users on the websites. Finally, verbal protocols in which the user says out loud what he/she ks feeling while he/she ks carrying out a task were collected. And then, the appropriateness of extracted emotional words was verified by the members of the consumer panel of a company through web survey. It is expected that emotional words extracted in this research will be used to measure user's emotional changes while using a product. Based on the conceptual framework suggested in this research, basic guidelines on interface design methods that reflect user's emotions will be illustrated.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
• /
• 제25권1호
• /
• pp.41-54
• /
• 2022

The purpose of this study was to propose a "user experience (UX)-centered product development process" so that the product design development process using the service design process can be systematized and used in practice. In a situation in which usability research on office phones is lacking compared to general home phones, this study expands to a product-based service design point of view rather than simple product development, intending to research ways to provide user experience value through office phone design in smart office. This study focused on extracting UX-centered user needs using the service design process and developing product design that realizes user experience value. In particular, the service design process was applied to systematically extract user needs and experience value elements in the product development process and to discover ideas that were converged with product-based services. For this purpose, the "Double Diamond Design Process Model," which is widely used in the service design field, was adopted. In addition, a product design development process was established so that usability improvement plans, user experience value elements, and product-service connected ideas could be extracted through a work-flow in which real users and people from various fields participate. Based on the double diamond design process, in the "Discover" information collection stage, design trends were identified mainly in the office phone markets. In the "Define" analysis and extraction stage, user needs were analyzed through user observation, interview, and usability survey, and design requirements and user experience issues were extracted. Persona was set through user type analysis, and user scenarios were presented. In the "Develop" development stage, ideation workshops and concept renderings were conducted to embody the design, and people from various fields within the company participated to set the design direction reflecting design preference and usability improvement plans. In the "Deliver" improvement/prototype development/evaluation stage, a working mock-up of a design prototype was produced and design and usability evaluation were conducted through consultation with external design experts. It is meaningful that it established a "UX-centered product development process" model that converged with the existing product design development process and service design process. Ultimately, service design-based product design development process was presented so that I Corp.'s products could realize user experience value through service convergence.

• Archives of design research
• /
• 제16권2호
• /
• pp.49-56
• /
• 2003

In order to design a product for old people, it is important to identify usability problems through usability test and solve such problems in design process. So, we performed a study on design evaluation and improvement focusing on washing machine, that is one of the most useful electric home appliances in old people's daily life. Also, we studied the method that the goniometer can be used in usability evaluation for a specific part of product and the result can be used in product design. And, methods for the decision of design concept and direction, the development of design alternatives, design evaluation, model making, and comparison test through human factors theory and experiment were studied. The result can be used as an important data in the development of washing machine for old people and the proposed methodology can be used in other products for old people as well as washing machine.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
• /
• 제11권2호
• /
• pp.215-226
• /
• 2008

The previous research suggested a self-report questionnaire-type scale to measure a user's emotions naturally expressed while using a product. Using the scale, this research measured their emotions expressed while users use cellular phones naturally for a certain time without setting tasks. The results suggest that the cellular phone of high usability lead to higher 'Satisfaction in Usability' and lower 'Uncomfortableness' than the cellular phone with usability flaws. On the other hand the cellular phone with usability flaws lead to higher 'Uncomfortableness' and lower 'Satisfaction in Usability' but higher in other representative emotions such as 'Aesthetics', 'Novelty', 'Pleasure', and 'Excellence' than the other cellular phone. It can be insufficient to define the correlation between the product usability and the user's emotions based on the results of this research: however, the correlation between these two factors will be discovered in more detail by analyzing the changes of the user's emotions according to the length of time of using cellular phone.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
• /
• 제19권3호
• /
• pp.51-60
• /
• 2000

Non-verbal sound feedback, called earcon, has been used for portable digital electronic products to give appropriate information for the selected function. This study evaluated usability based on user cognition time, error rate, and subjective satisfaction using 20 male and female subjects. The study compared five major user functions from a portable digital electronic product with currently available earcons and the same functions from the product with the new earcons (suggested by this study) which considered user cognitive characteristics, such as loudness, pitch, melody, and length. For subjective evaluation, the study assessed various earcons by subjective impression of sounds using the seven-point rating scales. Major statistical results indicated that the new earcons significantly reduced user error rates and generally improved user performance functions, such as 'play, off, stop, fast forward, and rewind.'

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Design Studies Conference
• /
• 한국디자인학회 2005년도 추계 학술발표대회 논문집
• /
• pp.240-241
• /
• 2005