This document provides information about a training project called "DE-SME - Intelligent Furniture - Training for Design, Environment and New Materials in SMEs". It lists the contact information for several individuals involved from the Kuopio Academy of Design in Finland. It then outlines several topics to be covered in the training, including an introduction to user centered design and examples using a case study of a company called "Suupirssi".

1. Satu Miettinen, Juha Miettinen, Antti Kares, Raisa Leinonen and Timo Sirviö
Kuopio Academy of Design, Savonia University of Applied Sciences
Finland
P.O. BOX 98, FIN -70101 KUOPIO
Email: office@designkuopio.fi
"DE-SME - Intelligent Furniture - Training for Design,
Environment and New Materials in SMEs"
Agreement n. 2009 - 2196 / 001 - 001

2. Theme 5.2.1. Understanding the
Customer: The principles of User
Centred Design Process
What is user centered design?
Examples in Case “Suupirssi”
2

3. User Centered Design
What is it?
It is focused on design for and involving the end users in design process
to achieve better user experiences in products.
It is actions that:
1) focuses on end users,
2) validate requirements and designs,
3) designing, prototyping and developing iteratively,
4) understanding and designing for the holistic user experience
The main phases are:
1) understanding users,
2) define interactions,
3) design user interface (products/services)
(SAP design Guild)

4. Understand
and specify
the context of
What is it? use:
- plan the process
and specify the
context of use
Evaluate
designs Specify user
against and
requirements organisational
System meets requirements
specified
functional user
& organisational
requirements
Produce
design
solutions
Human-centered design standard ISO 13407

5. What is it?
see also: www.ideo.com
“It is a process and a set of techniques used to create new solutions for the world.
Solutions include products, services, environments, organizations and modes of
Interaction” 1
“The reason for the process called human/user-centered design is, because
it starts with the people we are designing for. The process begins by: examining the
needs, dreams and behaviors of the people we want to affect with our solutions.
We seek to listen to and understand what people want. We call this the Desirability
lens. We view the world through this lens throughout the design process. Once we
have identified a range of what is Desirable, we begin to view our solutions through
the lenses of Feasibility and Viability.
The Three Lenses of Human
Centered Design/IDEO

6. Desirability lens:
Desirability What do people desire?
Feasibility What is technically and organizationally feasible?
Viability What can be financially viable?
The Three Lenses of Human
Centered Design/IDEO

7. Start here
Desirability
Feasibility Viability
“The solution that emerge at the end
of the user-centered design should hit
the overlap of these three lenses; they need to be The Three Lenses of Human
Desirable, Feasible and Viable.” Centered Design/IDEO

8. In other words...
LEARN, LOOK, ASK and TRY
• LEARN = analyzing the information you´ve
collect to indentify patterns and insights,
• LOOK = observe people to discover what they
do rather than what they say to do,
• ASK = enlist people´s participation to elict
information relevant to the project,
• TRY = create simulations with people and to
evaluate proposed designs.

9. WHY user centered design?
“Beside aesthetic quality, feasibility and usability, we expect the
designer to understand the whole of the user experience.”2
“In recent years, the practice of user-centred design, education
and research into it has started applying and developing approaches
particularly suited to design thinking and making. The objective has been to
encourage the designers’ empathy, to connect knowledge and inspiration,
to facilitate or support teamwork ;
hatching out ideas, communicating and making decisions.”2
2 Mattelmäki,T., Design probes, 2006.
Buchanan 2001, Fulton Suri 2003b, etc.

10. Towards design for users experience
“A discussion about users, understanding user experience as well as the
relation between design and emotions has emerged among researchers in
design and practising designers in the last ten years. The way of thinking of
the user has assumed new shades of meaning. In areas such as usability
they have discovered that decision-making is not based on rational and
logical reasoning, emotions having a vital significance”2
“At the same time, attention has turned from functionality, effective and
Faultless performance and satisfaction to a broader human understanding
and mapping out of pleasure factors”2
2 Norman 2004, Jordan 1996

11. This revision of perspective has started particularly because of the
spread of interactive technology from the workplace to home and
leisure in the 1990´s.
Patrick Jordan evoked the usability discussion by suggesting that
things giving pleasure should be looked for, not just problems.
The pleasure factors mentioned by Jordan are:
a) pleasure through physical sensations (physio pleasure)
b) pleasure through communication and time together (socio
pleasure)
c) pleasure through achievement and challenges (psycho pleasure)
d) pleasure through an aesthetic product and the values it contain
(ideo pleasure)
“As for understanding the users, attention to emotions and
pleasure has increased the range of phenomena
to be looked at.”
2 Jordan P.W.

12. Why?
The benefits of user - centered design
Reduced development time
Focusing on user and organizational needs will reduce the development time by:
• reducing the late changes otherwise needed to produce a product that meets user
needs
• reducing the cost of future redesign of the architecture to make future versions of the
product more usable
Increased sales
• marketing the product as easier to use than the competition provides an Increased
competitive edge
• repeat sales will be made to more satisfied customers
• the usability of the product will be given higher ratings in the trade press

13. Usage savings
• reduced task time and increased productivity
• fewer user errors that have to be corrected later
• fewer user errors leading to increased quality of service
• less training, support and documentation is required
• reduced staff turnover as a result of higher satisfaction and motivation
Support savings
• reduced costs of producing training materials
• reduced time providing training
• reduced time spent by other staff providing assistance when users encounter
difficulties
• reduced help line support
http://www.usabilitynet.org/trump/methods/basic/index.htm

14. Improve the quality of life
• less stress from frustrating software
• users are more satisfied
Health and safety legislation
• The European Directive on Display Screen Equipment (implemented in the national
legislation of EU countries) requires that software is suitable for the task and easy to
use.

15. How?
1. Understanding users
2. Defining Interaction
3. Designing concepts
4. Developing further
www.sapdesignguild.org

16. Understand users
Step Goal Deliverable
• User research • Collect up-to-date • Each user activity
(interviews, focus and in-depth summarizes in a
groups, field information on report
studies) intended user
populations • Specfication
• Specification: User • Describe user
profiles, works profiles and work
activities, user activities for the
requirements target user
population; derive
user requirements
from user profiles
and work activities

17. Define interaction
User research synthesis. Organize and summarize user research from
Understand Users
Step Goal Deliverable
• User cases: high-level • Translate user • Use cases
information activities associated specification
organization, use with user
cases, data flow.. requirements into
goal-driven,
interactive, step-by-
step use cases,
appropriate to the
• Use case validation user profiles • A component of the
• Validate user use cases
understanding and specification
product definition with
end users who use
the product and
customers who buy
the product

18. Design products, services
Step Goal Deliverable
• Low fidelity prototypes and • Create quick, inexpensive, • Design concepts
key decisions flexible design mock-ups of
product components and
constructions, use cases, etc.
• Iterative user evaluation • Improve design by evaluating
usability issues associated • Each user activity summarizes
(design feedback, rapid findings in a report
iterative evaluations) with low-fidelity prototypes
• Create stand-alone and
functional prototypes that • Prototypes and user
• High-fidelity prototypes and interaction specifications
include real applications that
interaction behavior
take-off/mimic real activities or
behavior as closely as • Each user activity summarizes
• Iterative user evaluation (rapid possible findings / the designer or the
iterative evaluations, usability • Improve design by evaluating person observating
evaluations) usability issues associated summarizes the findings
with high-fidelity prototypes

19. Development validation, finishing design
Step Goal Deliverable
• Design • Design for quality • Scorecard
before
development
• Compliance • Design • Scorecard
/prototypes
completed,
development for
a compliance and
• Usability test production • Usability test
• Test completed report
product (or high-
fidelity prototype)
usability

20. Understanding the users and
Define interaction
Scenarios
Storytelling/storyboard

21. Storyboard
• In the realm of product design, communication
between designer, client, design team and future
users is of great importance
• Throughout the design process, ideas and
concepts are generated and must be conveyed
to these people to evoke comments, judgement
or acceptance, depending on the process
phase.

22. • Storyboards are a valuable aid to the designer in this
task by providing a common visual language that people
from different backgrounds can ‘read’ and understand
• However, the visualisation style of the storyboards
influences the reactions
• Where open and sketchy storyboards are inviting
comments, sleek and detailed presentations can be
overwhelming
• Storyboards not only help the product designer to get a
grip on target groups, context, product use and timing,
but also in communicating about these aspects with all
people involved.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/lmvm49832p4887r1/

23. Example od storyboard: Imaginary story of oral hygienist workin day in
Suupirssi - emphatic design, taking the user position

24. Imaginary story of dentist and oral hygienic workin day in Suupirssi .
Morning activities at Suupirssi garage: filling up water tanks, cheking the list of patients and bringing the
instrumwents needed during the day. Navigation of the ”day trip”.
Arriving and parking: connection to the mains current, preparation of nursing interior for the patients.
8:00 am first patient with wheel chair. He is elevated in with wheel chair lifter. Then he is helped to the
dental unit. The usual dental care is made for the patient. Transfer to the next place.

25. The next dental care is made at home, in bed,
because of huge weight of patient.
Dentist
Nurse The monitory alarm of failure
Treatment
Student equipments
Two teeth were stopped
Taking the equipment to the car –
Ordering the service man

26. The dentist´s at the day - care center
15 children is
having a treatment
A familiar environment for children
makes situation more pleasant
Cleaning and packing
Coffee and
equipment
lunch brake 1h

27. Taking / packing all the things and equipement to the car and driving to the headquarter”.
Bye-bye, leaving brochures
and toothbrushes to the day-care center Driving the car to the garage

28. Car service
Treatment of sewage, disinfection
of instruments and cleaning tools
Clean-up the interior
End of the day
Save the patient information to the computer

29. Define interaction
User research synthesis. Organize and
summarize user research from phase
Understand Users
Benchmarking
Designboard
Moodboard
Way of Life board

30. Benchmarking
• Benchmarking is the process of comparing one's
business processes and performance metrics to industry
bests and/or best practices from other industries
• Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and
cost. Improvements from learning mean doing things
better, faster, and cheaper.
• Benchmarking involves management identifying the best
firms in their industry, or any other industry where similar
processes exist, and comparing the results and
processes of those studied (the "targets") to one's own
results and processes to learn how well the targets
perform and, more importantly, how they do it.

31. • The term benchmarking was first used by
cobblers to measure people's feet for shoes
• They would place someone's foot on a "bench"
and mark it out to make the pattern for the shoes
• Benchmarking is most used to measure
performance using a specific indicator (cost per
unit of measure, productivity per unit of
measure, cycle time of x per unit of measure or
defects per unit of measure) resulting in a metric
of performance that is then compared to others.

32. Benchmarking from internet

33. Mood board
• Mood boards are a great way to get you and your client
on the same page early on the process
• They’re especially great when you’re starting from
scratch on a design package for a new company, or
reinventing the image of an existing one
• The idea of a mood board is to create an emotional
scenario that’s congruent with what your client wants —
sort of an ambience collage

34. • It can be photographs, illustrations, screenshots,
color swatches, words, shapes: whatever
conveys the feel of your design plan
• There’s no “right” final presentation for a mood
board. It can be a big poster, a .pdf or even a
video
http://blog.evernote.com/2010/08/10/creating-a-mood-board-with-evernote-part-of-evernotes-creative-series/

35. Mood board

36. Design board

37. Board of lifestyle

38. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication
reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any
use which may be made of the information contained therein.
13.3.2012 38