Development of a usability evaluation method using natural product-use motion

Abstract

Ergonomic analysis of product-use posture and motion plays a key role to improve the usability of a product. Product-use posture and motion influence users' satisfaction as well as task efficiency during physical interactions (Clamann et al., 2012). In general, product-use posture and motion are highly affected by the physical design factors (e.g. length, height, and weight) of a product. Thus, the product design based on the ergonomic relationships between users and a product under consideration may help users have more comfortable and convenient physical interactions with a product (Fostervold et al., 2006;Rempel and Horie, 1994;Rose, 1991;Smith et al., 1998;Qin et al., 2013). For example, Rempel et al. (2007) analyzed wrist and forearm postures while keyboarding at various keyboard angles, and found the optimal split (12°) and gable (14°) angles which could reduce the awkward motions of the wrist and forearm.Most studies analyzing product-use posture and motion focused on the biomechanical load and motion efficiency while users interact with products. Nelson et al. (2000) measured keyboarding motions by an opto-electric finger monitor and analyzed finger/wrist postures and motions based on tendon excursion, angular velocity, and angular acceleration. Moffet et al. (2002) AbstractThe present study developed and tested a new usability evaluation method which considers natural product-use motions. The proposed method measures both natural product-use motions (NMs) and actual product-use motions (AMs) for a product using an optical motion capture system and examines the usability of the product based on motion similarity (MS; %) between NMs and AMs. The proposed method was applied to a usability test of four vacuum cleaners (A, B, C, and D) with 15 participants and their MSs were compared with EMG measurements and subjective discomfort ratings. Cleaners A (44.6%) and C (44.2%) showed higher MSs than cleaners B (42.9%) and D (41.7%); the MSs mostly corresponded to the EMG measurements, which could indicate that AMs deviated from NMs may increase muscular efforts. However, the MSs were slightly different from the corresponding discomfort ratings. The proposed method demonstrated its usefulness in usability testing, but further research is needed with various products to generalize its effectiveness.Keywords: Natural product-use motion; Motion similarity; Usability evaluation rear seat of minivans using an optical motion capture system and developed eight motion strategies for ingress and egress to propose the ergonomic door designs for minivans.A few studies have analyzed natural product-use posture and motion which are determined by user preference and used the natural motion information as a reference to evaluate physical interactions between users and a product. This is because using a product with natural product-use posture and motion could increase the affordance of a product and the user satisfaction of the product (Chang, 2007). In addition, finding natural product-use posture and motion could provide a...

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