Sean Hägen will be presenting, The Human Factors of Aesthetics
The presentation addresses the science that links aesthetics and usability, specific to healthcare. Based on how aesthetics impacts usability, a design process, utilizing product semantics, will be explained regarding the integration with human factors engineering, to meet the unique challenges of designing medical devices. The process of a user intuitively understanding the operation of a device is a complex series of biases, interactions, reasoning and expectations that starts with an initial assessment. This is especially critical when there is no product training or a significant lapse between use and training. In healthcare, the initial interaction with a device is often critical to the well-being of a person. The approach of product semantics, which includes designing in affordances, enables the visceral impact of a device’s aesthetic to communicate interaction cues.
The following are summary points for the presentation:
- The relationship between a device’s aesthetic and a user’s behavior.
- The key role of aesthetics in meeting requirements relative to “intuitive” and “easy to use”
- Introduction of the Product Semantics methodology linking aesthetics and usability
- Harmonizing use-safety and ease-of-use through product semantics and affordances
- Relationship of perception attributes to aesthetics and development of robust requirements
