APPLYING A COMBINED USER-CENTRED DESIGN APPROACH TO ASSISTIVE SHOPPING TROLLEY DEVELOPMENT IN DESIGN EDUCATION
Year: 2015
Editor: Christian Weber, Stephan Husung, Gaetano Cascini, Marco Cantamessa, Dorian Marjanovic, Monica Bordegoni
Author: Mengoni, Maura; Bevilacqua, Roberta; Peruzzini, Margherita
Series: ICED
Institution: 1: Polytechnique University of Marche, Italy; 2: Italian National Institute on Aging (INRCA)
Section: Human Behaviour in Design, Design Education
Page(s): 351-364
ISBN: 978-1-904670-74-2
ISSN: 2220-4334
Abstract
In the field of Ambient Assisted Living, the present research proposes a combined User-Centred Design approach that exploits the strengths of systematic and participatory design methodologies with the final aim to design an assistive device to solve mobility problems of elderly people in crowded environments. The application of the approach allows research to investigate which information gathering technique is more effective for this context of use and to find out competitive AAL solutions for specific target users. The experimentation is carried out by students attending an industrial design course. An experimental protocol is arranged to compare the outcomes from the different stages of the approach application. The scientific contribution of the present work regards both the presented results, that confirm how much effective is ethnography in respect to role-playing and traditional desk research in case of products oriented to special target users, and the educational experiences in the field of AAL.
Keywords: Design Education, User Centred Design, Evaluation, Ambient Assisted Living, Requirement Gathering