Affordance based interactive genetic algorithm (ABIGA)

Abstract

Designers can involve users in the design process. The challenge lies in reaching multiple users and finding the best way to use their input in the design process. Affordance based design (ABD) is a design method that focuses in part on the perceived or existing interactions between the user and the artifact. The shape and physical characteristics of the product enable the user to perceive some of its affordances. The goal of this research is to use ABD, along with an optimization tool, to evolve the shape of products toward better perceived solutions using the input from users. A web application has been developed that evolves design concepts using an interactive multi-objective genetic algorithm (IGA) relying on the user assessment of product affordances. As a proof of concept, a steering wheel is designed using the application by having users rate specific affordances of solutions presented to them. The results show that the design concepts evolve toward better perceived solutions, allowing designers to explore more solutions that reflect the preferences of end users. Relationships between affordances and product design variables are also explored, revealing that specific affordances can be targeted with changes in design parameter values and highlighting the tie between physical characteristics and affordances.

An interactive bi-objective optimisation process to guide the design of electric vehicle warning sounds

“…The first experiment showed that an IGA can be used to interactively explore a sound design space and to define efficient solutions for a bi-objective optimisation problem. This is consistent with previous studies showing the application of IGAs as interactive design tools to address complex perceptual dimensions or affordances (Brintrup et al 2008; Mata et al 2018). In particular, when the two dimensions are conflicting, an IGA may provide efficient designs because interactions between variables are integrated during the interactive solutions search.…”

“…More generally, the proposed method applies to any problem dealing with the optimisation of a parametrised design, according to one or several perceptual quantities, as long as the evaluation task is simple and short enough to allow for interactive optimisation. Thus, it is not limited to sound design, but can also apply to product shape design (e.g., Mata et al 2018). However, if the parameters take continuous values, the design recommendation method should be adapted (by, e.g., estimating probability density functions).…”

“…With this approach, it is possible to find solutions to problems involving a semantic dimension (such as the notion of ‘unpleasantness’ in this study, or the ‘clearance’ of a car dashboard in Poirson et al 2013), or perceptual dimensions. IGA can be used to assist the design of hearing aids (Durant et al 2004) or to optimise the affordances of steering wheels (Mata et al 2018). In this type of procedure, user fatigue is the main limitation to the maximum number of possible evaluations.…”

Acoustical and behavioral heuristics for fast interactive sound design

“…We review here some use cases tackled with IGAs where the proposed method could readily be applied: design of automobile parts, like dashboards [19], steering wheels [20] and exterior shape of the vehicle [21]; clothing design [22][23][24][25]; design of furniture like glasses [2], bottles [26], vases [27] or chairs [28]. Each time, the aim is to find designs that best respond to a given semantic description (for example, a "sporty" dashboard).…”