Requirements elicitation for assistive technology (AT) product development must be collaborative and systemic. This process must ensure that the needs of all different users are identified. For this, UCD methods introduce different tools that seek user involvement and their needs identification. One method commonly used in software development is User Stories. The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of User Stories for requirements elicitation in an AT product development project. This method was applied with three types of users: patients, companions and occupational therapists. For the involvement of these users, the method was customized and two main adaptations were adopted: the stories were written by the development team and all user needs were identified through observations of interactions between patients and prototype. As a result, the development team was able to identify numerous product requirements to be used in later development phases. These requirements were generated by the user needs identified with User Stories. Thus, the method with necessary adaptations, was efficient for requirements elicitation in the AT product development process.

In order to ensure the user's acceptance towards a product, the user has to be captured with all his facets and requirements. In this context, many user-centred design methods only focus on single aspects such as subjective expectation or ergonomic product design. Correlations and connections or a common consideration of several user parameters are often neglected, even if this can provide useful information for improving the design of products. Dual user integration tries to close this gap to a certain extent and considers the user's subjective expectation in combination with their physiological capacities. An integral part of this approach is a target-oriented evaluation of the user. Currently available methods of physiological and subjective evaluation of the user are only partially applicable for dual user integration. Especially physiological measurement techniques are time-consuming and expensive. For this reason, this contribution presents a new concept for capturing and describing the physiological capacity of the user via semantic differentials. Thereby, motor functions, cognition and perception are considered.

Throughout the course of product experience, a user employs multiple senses, including vision, hearing, and touch. Previous cross-modal studies have shown that multiple senses interact with each other and change perceptions. In this paper, we propose a methodology for designing multisensory product experiences by applying cross-modal effect to simultaneous stimuli. In this methodology, we first obtain a model of the comprehensive cognitive structure of user's multisensory experience by applying Kansei modeling methodology and extract opportunities of cross-modal effect from the structure. Second, we conduct experiments on these cross-modal effects and formulate them by obtaining a regression curve through analysis. Finally, we find solutions to improve the product sensory experience from the regression model of the target cross-modal effects. We demonstrated the validity of the methodology with SLR cameras as a case study, which is a typical product with multisensory perceptions.

Littering is a highly diffused anti-environmental and anti-social behavior, especially among young people. Furthermore, cigarette butts are one of the most littered items and are responsible for both severe environmental damages and high clean up expenses. The aim of this project is to design an interactive ashtray for the campus environment to limit the cigarette butts littering behavior in an engaging and effective way. Qualitative and quantitative data are collected. Coded observations were implemented through the research process, including the 2 pre (without the prototype) and 2 pros (with the prototype) sessions. Also, user experience test and one to one interview were conducted for deepening the understanding of the littering phenomenon and the reasons behind in the behavior among young people. The prototype indeed reduced the number of cigarette butts littering among observed behaviors of 156 students, especially in male sample. Final results indicate the behavior change of disposers is moderated by other factors, as the environmental cleanliness. Future development is also discussed.

Product customization aims to consider individual customers preferences in the design of new products, in order to directly involve them in the product development process and to maximize their satisfaction. It can be considered a key competitive factor and a “hot topic” in several industrial sectors, including luxury apparel goods and high-end footwear products. However, currently the design and manufacturing of customized shoes are carried out through artisanal and non-standardized processes, based on the individual expertise of operators.

The objective of this study is to define an innovative framework to support the different processes affected by customization. This framework is enabled by different digital technologies, as CAD-based tools, virtual/augmented reality systems, etc., opportunely integrated in the product development process. The main benefits related to the framework implementation in real industrial contexts are an increase of flexibility, the repeatability of processes, a higher efficiency in information exchange, a more effective involvement of final customers, and, as a consequence, the reduction of time to market and production costs for tailor-made shoes.

Customer preference modeling provides quantitative assessment of the effects of engineering design attributes on customers’ choices. Utility-based approaches, such as discrete choice model (DCM), and network analysis approaches, such as exponential random graph model (ERGM), have been developed for customer preference modeling. However, no studies have compared these two approaches. Our objective is to identify the distinctions and connections between these two approaches based on both the theoretical foundation and the empirical evidence. Using the vehicle preference modeling as an example, our study shows that when network structure effects are not considered, results from ERGM are consistent with DCM in most of the test cases. However, in one case where customers have varying choice set with multiple alternatives, inconsistencies are observed, possibly due to the discrepancies of the two models in taking different information when calculating choice probabilities. The insights will lead to valuable guidance for choosing the technique for customer preference modeling and co- developing the two frameworks to support engineering design.

Product success depends on its capacity to meet users’ expectations. Human Centred Design approach helps to reach this success by focussing on users’ needs in the design process. These needs are as well functional as hedonic. Designing products requires then to design hedonic properties affecting users’ perception. For sport products, people wants to improve their performances while maintaining their health. Sport products are then considered not only “sporty” but also “healthy”. Thus, integrating both health and sport expectations into the design process are necessary.

Last decades, Affective Engineering was developed to integrate perception into the design process. Applying this approach for sport products may allow defining and mixing sport and health perceptual characteristics all along the design process. However, defining these characterisitics into requirements implies to translate them into semantic terms. If we observe semantic descriptors for sport products and for health products, they seem opposite. In this paper, we aim defining a semantic space representative and respectful of both domains, sport and health, while they oppose.

Proficiency in design thinking (DT) can contribute to the success of many companies. Successful implementation of DT can be achieved by identifying its Critical Success Factors (CSFs). Critical success factors are items or actions that should be present in a particular project or situation in order to be successful. However, to date, there has not been any formal study on synthesizing the critical success factors for a successful DT implementation based on existing research. In light of this, the aim of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework that proposes factors that may play a role in influencing the success of the DT implementation. Based on best practices and protocols from thematic analysis, we analyzed and synthesized extant literature in order to recognize research topics from the selected papers and categorize them into specific themes to build a framework. This study significantly contributes to the body of knowledge related to DT by offering the first attempt to identify CSFs for DT implementation, which can allow companies to take required precautions to elude failures or problematic areas and be able to increase the success rate of implementing DT

Societies are challenged worldwide to maintain or improve the life of an ageing population. In the meantime, it is an opportunity for businesses to develop products and services for the elderly. Participatory design - or co-design - promotes not only to design for, but also with and by older adults. Current studies tend to emphasize more field investigations and co-ideation than evaluation of co- designed outcomes with seniors. We are interested in two 24 hours-innovation contests in 2017 and 2018, yearly involving 10 teams of 3 students, elderly persons as potential beneficiaries and innovation experts. The aim of this paper is to analyse the variability of evaluation of generated projects between the elderly people and the innovation experts. The comparative analysis relies on the grades and ranking of projects against five criteria. Results show that elderly people provide consistent evaluations, but with a positioning slightly shifted compared to the experts. We conclude on recommendations for the evaluation process with a jury including seniors.

The control shifting between a human driver and a semi-autonomous vehicle is one of the most critical scenarios in the road-map of autonomous vehicle development. This paper proposes a methodology to study driver's behaviour in semi-autonomous driving with physiological-sensors-integrated driving simulators. A virtual scenario simulating take-over tasks has been implemented. The behavioural profile of the driver has been defined analysing key metrics collected by the simulator namely lateral position, steering wheel angle, throttle time, brake time, speed, and the take-over time. In addition, heart rate and skin conductance changes have been considered as physiological indicators to assess cognitive workload and reactivity. The methodology has been applied in an experimental study which results are crucial for taking insights on users’ behaviour. Results show that individual different driving styles and performance are able to be distinguished by calculating and elaborating the data collected by the system. This research provides potential directions for establishing a method to characterize a driver's behaviour in a semi-autonomous vehicle.

This study attempted to explore how pragmatic and hedonic values are influenced by the level of technology and what particular functions have to be considered in the context of smart technology- driven design in terms of Pragmatic Value (PV) and Hedonic Value (HV). An on-line questionnaire survey was developed to answer the research questions. A total of 104 respondents participated in the survey. As target product for the study, analog watch and smart watch were selected as representative of low and high technology respectively. Semantic Differentials on PV and HV were used and expected functions were investigated via an open question. The results indicate that there are some differences between analog and smart watches in terms of PV and HV. Regarding expected functions, significant differences were identified in the study. The findings from the study could provide a better understanding of the relationship between PV and HV in terms of level of technology. If it is considered in product development process, it may contribute to an increase of user satisfaction with smart- technology based product and service.

As design and design thinking become increasingly important competencies for a modern workforce, the burden of assessing these fuzzy skills creates a scalability bottleneck. Toward addressing this need, this paper presents an exploratory study into a scalable computational approach for design thinking assessment. In this study, student responses to a variety of contextualized design questions – gathered both before and after participation in a design thinking training course – are analyzed. Specifically, a variety of text features are engineered, tested, and interpreted within a design thinking framework in order to identify specific markers of design thinking skill acquisition. Key findings of this work include identification of text features that may enable scalable measurement of (1) user-centric language and (2) design thinking concept acquisition. These results contribute toward the creation of computational tools to ease the burden of providing feedback about design thinking skills to a wide audience.

In the modern automotive industry, a car's style clearly defines its brand. In the context of globalization, a question has recently emerged concerning the relationship between a country's culture and the car style of a particular brand. The style is one way to place car morphologies into a meaningful structure, called the “telling structure.” This research hypothesizes that a stylist tries to compress a car's form and make it a refined unicum that is streamlined with some inherent features, which express a brand's cultural aesthetics. Using the cognitive paradigm that an end user transforms explicit references into implic-it references and that the telling structure of a car's design features influences the recognition of the brand, this research demonstrates a novel method to ad-dress this hypothesis. Results from this study show that there is a relationship between the brand's country of origin and the perceived recognition of a car. However, a country's brand culture is not always represented by the style of the cars. In particular, the results indicate that some cars can actually lose their cultural identity, especially in the context of a worldwide market.

Design thinking as explored by Bernard Roth from the Stanford d.School, Roger Martin from the Rothman School of Management, and the IDEO merger trio by Tom and David Kelley, as well as current its CEO Tim Brown, dominates the narrative of the contemporary schools of design thinking since the late `90s. This article aims to investigate the underlying philosophies, authors, and events that laid the foundation in which these contemporary designers based their strategies on planning for complex environments. To satisfy this intent, the turbulent origin of design methods is explored, following the post-war environment that allowed these ideas to flourish, the generations of methods in design from the `60s to the `90s, and the encroachment of design methods to the embodiment of a commercialized design thinking methodology.

In the course of the IPD International Summer School, two teams addressed the topic of devel-oping an integrated product, with the constraint of it being joyful for the user. One team has chosen an agile development approach whereas the second team approached it in a plan-driven manner. With the starting conditions for both teams being equal, a direct comparison between the agile and plan-driven development approach can be undertaken. The different courses of action are displayed and the different ways on how to approach the topic of achieving joy for the user are outlined. The results as well as the challenges associated with each approach are dis-cussed and an outlook on the transferability to other fields is given.

Design thinking has a prominent role as established corporations ramp up innovation efforts focusing on user needs. Current literature provides a plethora of definitions for design thinking with variations in tools, methods and cultures. This study aims to identify differences in perception and maturity of design thinking across different contexts within a large corporation. The results are based on a thematic analysis of nine semi-structured interviews with industrial and user experience designers in the case company, operating in different countries and three different organizational contexts: lone designers of a region, unit-embedded design team managers and global-level design managers. The results echo the literature in finding no uniform definition of design thinking. Instead, it was seen as a continuous scale of practices, cognitive approaches and mindsets aiming for stronger user-centrism in the organization. Practices and maturity varied between contexts, indicating that to strengthen the role of design in an organization, a deep understanding of the context is crucial for a successful implementation.

Systems engineering and design thinking have been widely seen as distinctly different processes, systems engineering being more data-driven and analytical, and design thinking being more human- centred and creative. We use the term ‘design thinking’ to encompass the plurality of human-centered design processes that seek to unpack the core values behind design decisions. With the increased awareness that both systems engineering and design thinking need each other, the effects of a possibly persisting distinction on engineers’ attitudes toward these two processes are not well understood. In this paper, we describe the development and validation of a scale for measuring individual attitudes about systems engineering and design thinking. Thematic analysis of engineering and design literature is used to derive a Likert scale reflecting these attitudes. We use exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to test and confirm this two-factor thematic representation, resulting in a 9-item Systems Engineering and Design Thinking Scale measure of attitudes.

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are very quite at low speed, which can be hazardous for pedestrians. It is necessary to add warning sounds but this can represent an annoyance if they are poorly designed. On the other hand, they can be not enough detectable because of the masking effect due to the background noise. In this paper, we propose a method for the design of EV sounds that takes into account in the same time detectability and unpleasantness. It is based on user tests and implements Interactive Genetic Algorithms (IGA) for the optimization of the sounds. Synthesized EV sounds, based on additive synthesis and filtering, are proposed to a set of participants during a hearing test. An experimental protocol is proposed for the assessment of the detectability and the unpleasantness of the EV sounds. After the convergence of the method, sounds obtained with the IGA are compared to different sound design proposals. Results show that the quality of the sounds designed by the IGA method is significantly higher than the design proposals, validating the relevance of the approach.

People living with disabilities can have needs for Assistive Technology (AT) that are out of the scope of occupational therapists, commercial markets and charitable distributions. For such needs, designers, engineers, makers and clinicians in the local community can design and fabricate AT through an inclusive, participatory, user centred design process. By tapping into the skills, creativity, facilities and knowledge of local design, medical, engineering and management schools, we can make clinics for AT innovation, practical design education, business incubation and product provision. Through two case studies, we demonstrate the necessary steps towards this novel approach to compassionately design, fabricate and deliver bespoke and scalable AT innovations. The practice is multidisciplinary, it empowers people with disabilities to creatively challenge their problems, contributes to design education and requires a system to ensure product quality and follow ups. We envision that over years, this practice can become a movement that is able to systematically knit the patched ecosystem for AT, while contributing to the global understanding of design for people with disabilities.

The wearable products market is growing rapidly. Engaging users on an emotional level may be the key to long-term use and attracting new customers. While researchers have proposed various design approaches to realize design qualities for wearable devices, emotional needs are overlooked in the design process. To bridge this gap, we developed an approach with an online tool that uses a two-axis interactive collage for users to compare and evaluate wearable products with targeted emotion-related descriptive words. This approach enabled us to explore how users perceive products and identify types of emotions that were associated with their preferences for and perceptions of the product's form and visible characteristics. The study demonstrated this design approach to reveal insights into the relationships between product characteristics and design goals, such as user comfort, user delight, and perceived product usefulness. The results showed that products that resemble clothes were perceived as more delightful and comfortable. This study suggests that the approach can be further used to explore other design concepts or goals.