There is only one use for a lamp. It lights the room up. Everything I have designed thus far needs to follow certain rules. The couch has to be large and comfortable. The reclining chair has to be able to recline. The coffee table has to have a flat surface to place things on. These […]
The coffee table is a standard household item that is constantly over looked. We don’t quite realize how important of an object it is and how versatile it can be. It is not only used for beverages, like the name entails, it can be used as a foot rest, an object to gather around for […]
Although not an extremely common household item the reclining chair has been around for many years. One of the first reclining chairs was created by Edward K. Knabush and Edwin J. Shoemaker, two Americans, who then patented the wooden recliner in 1928. This patent was the start of the founding of the company La-Z-Boy. A reclining chair […]
The couch is a standard household item. We use it for so many different things; sitting, sleeping, relaxing, watching television, reading a book, talking to people, eating dinner. A lot of thought goes into purchasing a new couch and when we do we hope it lasts forever. The couch can provide people with many different […]
Over the course of the weekend I participated in a usability study for T-Mobile. Although I am not at liberty to discuss the details of the study I can tell you what I learned from it. Usability testing is something that companies will do in order to see what parts of a design work well […]
Doors. We use them everyday. They are not a very complex tool yet for some reason we can struggle with them. Whenever you struggle to figure out how a door works you typically blame yourself. “This object is so simple I must be an idiot to not know how to use it”. However, doors have […]
In the book The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman, one idea that is stressed is how users blame themselves for bad design. We assume that mass produced products are designed properly because we trust companies to put their products through rigorous tests. This truth is that many products are released without any usability testing at […]
So this week I finished the book The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman. I learned a lot about basic design in this book. Some of the highlights include; Natural Mapping: This is a very important part of design. Natural mapping has to do with how the layout of the controls are arranged when […]
Ergonomics is method of design that focuses on creating objects based on the physical measure of the human body and the cognitive processes of people. It’s main priority is to make objects more comfortable to use but also more intuitive. Ergonomics is closely related to Human Factor Psychology, in fact, these names are interchangeable. Examples […]
