Improving the intuitive usability of everyday things - a group work with human factors students

Abstract

We present the results of a class of the Human Factors master program at the Technische Universität Berlin (Berlin Institute of Technology), entitled “Concepts of Intuitive Use”. The objective participants had to accomplish was the redesign of an existing non-intuitively usable interface. Based on a concept of intuitive use that was developed during the class, the students’ task was to identify interface characteristics of existing technical artefacts that prevent the interaction with them from being judged as intuitive by potential users. Subsequently, badly designed features had to be redesigned, providing interfaces that could be used in a more intuitive manner. Four everyday products were chosen for the redesign process. After familiarization with the concept of intuitive use, its measurement and different design approaches expected to support intuitive use, students are to derive ideas for the redesign of the existing interfaces. The new interfaces will be implemented as software mock-ups. Both, the old and the revised interface are to be comparatively tested for intuitive use. We expect the results to represent a suitable basis for deriving design principles for intuitive use.