Can built products inspire better digital experiences?
My background and education is in Industrial Design but for the last couple of years i’ve had job titles of UX Designer and Product Designer. I’m particularly fascinated by how these two worlds intersect, how people interact with physical and digital products in the environment around them and importantly what each discipline can inspire in the other. While there are many transferable skills and knowledge it goes without saying there are key differences.
Finding the “Average” User
The design of manufactured products requires a great deal of consideration of ergonomics to ensure the products we’re designing fit the people using them. When designing furniture we use percentiles to make products the right scale which helps us to create comfort, reduce fatigue or injury, this often works for the most part but can still lead to excluding people.
For example it’s common practice to design for the 5th percentile female to 95th percentile male. The idea is that the 5th% to 95th% range accommodates approximately 90% of the population. This is suitable for people who fall into the range. Car seats, plane seats, worktop heights, doorways, the list goes on… many of these products are designed to fit within this range.
For people who are outside of the range, the experience can be uncomfortable, painful or simply unusable and users can start to feel excluded as their requirements are unmet. This can also be the case for people who meet the range average metric in one area but not in another. Office workstations are a complex challenge to achieve proportions suited to a large number of users meeting the right seating height, desk height and monitor height for example.
A simple solution to this in furniture design is to build adjustment which helps to accommodate a wider range of people and the users who fit in the middle of the scale will find comfort in the product. It’s critical that the design isn’t designed solely with the ‘average user’ in mind. The focus should be on the people at the extreme ends of the scale.
It’s relatively easy to sample a large number of people and determine average values across pre-determined metrics such as height, waist size, arm span etc but it’s very difficult to find individuals who are actually average across more than a couple of those metrics.
It’s a tangible way to demonstrate how misleading the term ‘average user’ can be and for me a firm reminder to think about who we are designing for and whether we should even be thinking of users as ‘average’.
Design for extreme users first
I’m an advocate for designing for an extreme user first as the product will more likely suit an ‘average user’ too and this notion is backed up by examples within Industrial Design. For example, designing for users with low dexterity first means those users with good dexterity will also find the product easy to use. This salad spinner doesn’t require the user to use two hands and grab hold of a handle and turn it, the user simply presses the large button to operate the spin mechanism.
This measuring jug has the markings imprinted diagonally so the user can view the measurement from above, this benefits people of all heights and capability to easily and efficiently use the jug negating the need to bend down to it to read off the measurement.
These principles bring to mind accessibility requirements in Product Design and a good reminder that accessibility requirements should include temporary and situational limitations too and we should be making these considerations early on in the design process and try to identify those users at the beginning.
Colour vision deficiencies
Consideration for colour contrast is a common practice in Product Design and has been a consideration in built environments for a long time. Public transport handrails and grab handles are painted or moulded in colours that contrast the furniture fabrics to assist people moving through the spaces of buses and trains. It’s effective for both people with and without visual impairments making it far easier to instinctively grab the handles if moving through the carriage while the vehicle is in transit.
Another functional use of colour is for visual cues or to convey emotions. Red is often used to indicate something bad, or to stop and related to warnings (in most cultures), green is used for go and success. However red and green is also a common colour deficiency and therefore colour shouldn’t be relied upon as the sole indicator, we should include labels or icons to support them. In the physical world traffic lights use 3 lights instead of a single light that changes colour to give the user a reference.
‘Red-green’ colour vision deficiency is a common problem that affects around 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women.
Someone with this type of colour vision deficiency may:
- Find it hard to tell the difference between reds, oranges, yellows, browns and greens
- See these colours as much duller than they would appear to someone with normal vision
- Have trouble distinguishing between shades of purple
- Confuse reds with black
We should endeavour to understand what our designs look like to build empathy for those users who sit at the extreme ends of our user spectrum to find solutions that best suit all users. Finding colour solutions that pleases aesthetically as well as offering enough contrast can be challenging and is of course highly subjective. It goes without saying the purpose of using colour in design isn’t limited to aesthetics but it got me wondering if you might be able to use colour so it’s aesthetically pleasing with or without colour vision deficiency and what that process might look like.
Using colour simulation is a simple and effective way to build empathy for people with colour vision deficiencies. From an accessibility stand point these considerations should be discussed early on and subsequently they become far easier to create suitable solutions that accommodate a greater range of people than if considered later on. The difficulty is often colours are predetermined by brands and designers are limited to colour palettes with the added challenge of balancing style guides and aesthetics. It provides a very interesting predicament and one I’ve started to think about more and more.
Inspiration can be found in built products
Technological advancement enables innovation in both Industrial and Digital Product Design and by looking to extreme use cases we can take inspiration. Elite sports teams such as the GB Cycling Team are using 3D printing to optimise ergonomics and aerodynamics creating components that are adapted specific to riders.
Enabling handles bars to be manufactured for a perfect balance of ergonomic fit to aerodynamic performance individual to the rider enabling them to optimise power output, aerodynamics and comfort so the rider can sustain the optimal position and power output for the duration of the race.
This technology could be applied to improve ergonomics across a variety of less performance focussed products too to improve comfort or assist users with low dexterity for example. However I think there’s something inspiring about being able to manufacture physical products so bespoke to the user. This adaptive approach could improve digital experiences and influence us to think about the challenges faced with colour accessibility for example by giving our users adaptive interfaces bespoke to their visual needs. Delivering personalised colour experiences to users, or adaptive colours in design systems and interfaces where users can set the hues themselves might lead us to a better balance of aesthetics and functionality for all users.
A final reminder to challenge your assumptions
Industrial Design prototyping has multiple purposes many of which I think can inform better digital prototypes. Industrial designers want to understand ergonomics, scale, weight and functionality amongst other aspects but can inspire us about creating empathy because in a physical environment prototypes are often tested in accurate real-world context. By contrast it’s all too easy to pick up a mobile device and test out a prototype sat in your office chair and think you have a good idea of how easy it is to use but of course your viewing this through your own lens and not necessarily those of the end user in the environments or situations they’re facing.
Think about the wider context of your product. Not all use cases have consistent uninterrupted conditions and looking at industrial design we can start to inform our thinking on how we might interact with our own prototypes to create empathy. For example if your product is aimed at people on the move then you should test out your prototypes on the move, walk down a busy street with the sun in your eyes holding a cup of coffee, now with a glare on the screen and only one hand to interact is it still working the way you intended?
If your app relies on audible feedback have you considered this in a noisy environment, have you considered users with partial sight or even low dexterity. These are all people who will use your product and it’s important we endeavour to accommodate them and not just the ‘average’ user.
We’re only scratching the surface and covering a range of topics but I think there are a multitude of ways Industrial Design practices can inspire better digital experiences but ultimately the best experiences are those that have been considered in the real world context it’s used in.
