Looking into the Future from the Viewpoint of Users

Beautifully reflecting users' views and bringing comfort and convenience to their daily lives - it can be safely said that the proposition imposed on design is profound and sophisticated. When we look around carefully, however, we often see situations where some people are confused in an airport or a train station, and some people are weary of the difficulties of using consumer goods. What is the cause of such usage difficulties? There seems to be an underlying problem that many environments and products are not designed to be easy-to-use for some users. We are likely to forget that a wide variety of designs in our daily life may cause us either physical or emotional stress. Therefore, we start the design process by studying and understanding the realities of daily life for a wide range of people.
Design based on hints picked up from conversations with users. Design born from a design process in which a great number and variety of users participate. The basis of work at tripod design is to "get a small hint" from users.

"Users are extremely individualistic. Each user has a unique mind and unique physical condition. Users lead their daily lives, always changing as time goes forward."

"We live within environments and are surrounded by products that were designed by are great number of people. As we begin to take this for granted, we fail to notice the influence of design."

Our Eyes Focused on Users

100 designers may produce 100 different types of chairs. On the other hand, 100 users of a design have 100 different body types, minds and lifestyles. tripod design focuses on how diverse designs meet users' needs and function well for them in their daily lives, and how users' bodies are physically designed and how they accommodate themselves to the surrounding environment and to products. We have also developed a keen interest in how a wide range of users recognize, understand and get used to objects being designed for their daily lives. For each product we design we are pursuing a design that generates interest and a desire to use the product among a wide range of users while not causing stress to their bodies and minds; a design that always respects the personality of each user; and environments, systems and processes to foster the awareness of the need to produce such designs. Our eyes focused on users represents the idea of Human Centered Design that we are pursuing.

"Artificial products that human beings have designed and produced place a heavy burden on our living environment. This causes not only city and environmental problems but also leads to our failure to adapt to designs."

Users consist of a wide range of people with different body types and ways of thinking. Design is expected to serve the needs of a wide range of people and their environments.

"Converting the ideas of the mind into tangible forms" Design is one of human being's amazing abilities. But, we should always pay close attention to "for whom the design exists."

Inclusive Solution

We are also users

To answer the question "what is a good design", we have to meet all the users of a design around the world. The design themes and approaches that tripod design creates have "three legs (tripod)."

The first leg is "interactive and participatory design based on two-way communications with users." The second leg is "sustainable design taking into consideration our living environments." And the third leg is "universal design considering the needs of a wide range of users."

Looking back at the "industry-first" policy of the 20th century, society pursued convenience and richness in various situations, and manufacturers and retailers mass produced standard product designs and accelerated the systems and structures to penetrate markets. We can see that there was a vague but unfounded perception at that time that users were always "young, adult, healthy and right-handed men."

In addition, the perception gap between manufacturers and users widened even further in the 20th century. Product design and manufacturing without conversations with users... When we see such phenomena with our own eyes, we put the question to ourselves whether the target users for the designs were extremely vague or special niche user groups. Before starting a design, we should understand the varying existences of a wide range of users - how they use the product, for what purpose, in what kind of environment.

tripod design aims for designs that are inviting to more and more users and function beautifully in the daily lives of users who want to use the designs.

tripod design's Theory and Methods

Since 1992, tripod design has conducted practical studies on Human Centered Design by focusing on universal design. As a result of this design methodology research, we found it possible to create design/product/environment development methods that greatly reflect universal design values, while using ordinary design processes, by adopting the following three measures and approaches:

three measures and approaches

1. Establish user research methods to understand a wide range of users.
2. Develop an evaluation system to evaluate to what degree a product or an environment reflects universal design values.
3. Establish a development process based on dialogue with users. Conduct design development and manufacturing based on conversations with a wide range of users.

Understand a wide range of users

Design users are extremely diverse and individualistic. Owing to this fact, designers have a tendency to neglect our duty of interviewing, observing and understanding both physical and mental conditions and lifestyles of each user, though these steps must be taken before starting a product design. Manufacturers may mistakenly identify all users of a product as young and healthy. tripod design has developed a research & survey methodology, including direct observation, actual survey of product use (field research), and direct interviews (detailed interview) to gain a deeper understanding of users' consciousness and physical conditions.

Establish the usability evaluation system of environments and products being designed

Assumptions and considerations about a wide range of users are required to evaluate the usability of environments and products being designed. It is also important to research how a wide range of users in different mental and physical conditions use a given environment or product, as well as the sequence of use. A proprietary design evaluation system is necessary to evaluate to what degree we have carefully designed our products, while assuming actual usage scenarios in users' daily lives and considering the actual situations and sequence of their usage of a product. tripod design has a proprietary evaluation system based on universal design values to help us achieve Human Centered Design (HCD). We evaluate all of our designs by using this evaluation system.

Understand the trends of consciousness among a wide range of people in society.

Design work with users

In 1994, we established a small monitor group of 22 users and started the preliminary research and observation-type evaluation for the design development of our first product "Handy Birdy". Since then, the number of voluntary monitors (trial users for product evaluation) has been increasing annually. At present, we have several monitor groups to choose from depending on research objectives, development stages and type of evaluation items. This includes a group for on-line opinion surveys of every day users, a group for trial use of a product in their daily lives (field research), and a group for detailed interviews to gain a deeper understanding in a design evaluation. With our user groups, we are able to conduct design evaluation and verification in every development stage of a product design.