IWIPS 2011 Panel Session

Name of Panel:

Product Globalization, EQUID, Cultural and Affective Design

Name of Chair:

Dr. Halimahtun M. Khalid

Email Address of contact person:

halimahtun@damai-sciences.com

Panelists:

Overview

This panel aims to address three related issues that are pertinent to internationalization of products and systems, namely: product globalization, ergonomics quality in design, cultural and affective design , with the goal of stimulating discussions among participants in the workshop.

There are three main aspects of product globalization: (1) Management of internationalization and localization, (2) Guidelines to facilitate successful global design, and (3) Processes required in implementing global products. The assumptions in product design are that the product is “neutral,” “one size fits all,” and by removing all culturally specific features from the product affects changes at the interface level but not the functionality. Today with global markets, every product has users with different cultural beliefs, history, and practices. One goal is to design a product that is useful and satisfies all user expectations and cultural norms. This is not an easy task; it is unlikely that one designer will have knowledge of the cultures for which a product is targetted. Guidelines in global design can be used, but there are advantages and disadvantages that need to be addressed.

Users are increasingly more aware of the ergonomics design of products. For a variety of products in different markets it is simply not enough to have many functions and/or an aesthetic design. User oriented design of products is a key factor for economic success. The usefulness of ergonomics for design processes and for strategic management led to the E rgonomics Q uality i n D esign ( EQUID) initiative by the International Ergonomics Association (IEA). The global objective of EQUID is to promote the integration of ergonomics into the design process, besides supporting the public to make more informed decisions about the ergonomics quality of products. A basic requirement of the EQUID approach is to have a comprehensible and transparent documentation of the user participation within the product development process. However, EQUID has yet to consider affective and cultural requirements in its framework. One reason being that designers tend to understand functional requirements better .

An emerging aspect of product internationalization is Affective Engineering, which is concerned with measuring people's affective responses to products. It is now an expanding method for use in research and in the industry. Approaches to affect include understanding how one can measure and analyse human reactions to affective and pleasurable design, and how one can produce affective design features of products for the global market. However, both product globalization and EQUID have yet to consider affective design in product development processes. M ethods may be developed to measure user experience in terms of affective responses.

Panelist 1: Topic - Product globalization and EQUID

Halimahtun M. Khalid, CPE, PhD (University College London, UK) is Founder and Executive Director of Damai Sciences, Malaysia and Singapore. She was formerly Professor of Cognitive Ergonomics at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, where she founded the Centre for Applied Learning and Multimedia, and the Institute of Design and Ergonomics Application. She has taught Human Factors Engineering for 30 years at several local universities, as well as Product Design at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, and several industry courses in product design and office ergonomics.

Dr. Khalid has about 35 years of research experience in affective design, mass customization, multicultural cognition, disaster attitudinal modeling, multimedia, virtual reality, and speech recognition. She was Co-Technical Manager of the EU IST CATER Project (C.N. 035030), where she pioneered the citarasa engineering method.

She has published more than 150 papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings. She is editor of Virtual Reality and co-author of Affective Engineering & Design chapter in the Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics (Wiley).

Presently, she consults with CapitaLand and ExxonMobil in office ergonomics and Mimos Berhad in product ergonomics. She has consulted with PFC Engineering, Petronas Gas Berhad, Nokia UK, Mustang International, Sarawak Shell Berhad, Honeywell Inc., MicroUsability, Ministry of Trade & Industry (Singapore), Scholle Pty Ltd (Australia), and the US Air Force.

Dr. Khalid is President of the South East Asian Network of Ergonomics Societies, and Protem President of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Malaysia. She is Past Chair of the Standing Committee of Science Technology & Practice of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA), and current Chair of the IEA Affective Design Technical Committee. She is also a Fellow of the IEA.

Panelist 2: Topic - Innovative design for global markets

Girish V. Prabhu, PhD (State University of New York, Buffalo, USA) is Director of User, Business, Design (UBD) innovation at Srishti Labs, Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore, India. Before joining Srishti, Dr. Prabhu was Chief of Technical Staff – Asia for Human Factors International. Dr. Prabhu has 17+ years of experience in UBD innovation, new product & business development, and product internationalization. Throughout his career he has held various management positions in new business development, research, and product commercialization at Intel, Eastman Kodak and HP, and was instrumental in implementing user-centered design processes in multiple product areas. He has the unique experience of taking three new ideas from early conceptualization to a full-fledged new business.

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Panelist 3 : Topic - Indigenous Cultures, Innovation and Design for Global Markets

Alvin W. Yeo, PhD (University of Waikato, New Zealand) is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), and Director of the Institute of Social Informatics and Technological Innovations, and the Centre of Excellence for Rural Informatics. His expertise is in the area of Information and Communications Technology for Rural Development (ICT4RD).

Dr. Yeo is also a specialist in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research, specifically in software internationalisation, multimodal interaction, gazed based systems, and the use of ICTs for the preservation of indigenous languages.

He currently heads the Sarawak Language Technology (SaLT) Research Group, and is involved in two European Union projects, besides several national projects.

Dr. Yeo has published a chapter in The Encyclopaedia of Developing Regional Communities with ICT, evaluated Malaysian federal-funded ICT4RD initiatives, and worked with United Nations Economic and Social Commission for the Asia Pacific (UNESCAP). He has been involved in the eBario Project which garnered numerous awards, including the Commonwealth CAPAM Innovation award, against 112 international submissions worldwide.

At the national level, he is a member of the pro-tem committee of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Malaysia, besides the University representative in the national Language Cluster Research. He is a Member of the Expert Review Panel for the ICT “National Brain Gain Programme” Sub-sector, appointed by the Academy of Sciences Malaysia.

Panelist 4: Topic - Affective design for global markets

Martin G. Helander, CHFP, PhD (Chalmers University, Sweden), is Professor at the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, and past Head of the Systems & Engineering Management Division. For the past 10 years he has been Director of the Human Factors Program at NTU, besides founder of a similar program at Linköping University, Sweden. He has taught Human Factors Engineering and Product Design for over 35 years. He has 300 publications and 10 books including the first Handbook of Human-Computer Inte raction (Elsevier), Introduction to Human Factors and Ergonomics (CRC/Taylor & Francis). He previously held faculty positions at University at Buffalo, USA; Linköping University, Sweden, and visiting appointments at MIT and HKUST, Hong Kong. He was also a Senior Scientist with Human Factors Research, Inc. Santa Barbara, CA.

Prof. Helander is Principal Consultant with Damai Sciences Pte Ltd, Singapore. He has extensive consulting experience with Industry and Government, including AT&T, Bell Laboratories, Computer Consoles Inc., Eastman Kodak, Ericsson, ExxonMobil, Herman Miller Inc., Honeywell, Inc., IBM Corporation, Ingersoll Rand Corporation, Ministry of Manpower (Singapore), Motorola, NIOSH (USA), National Research Council (USA), Saab Aerospace, Seagate Inc., Shell Inc., Steelcase Inc., Swedish Defense Research Agency, UCLA, Xerox Corporation, U.S. Air Force, Mimos Berhad and Petronas Gas Berhad.

His research expertise includes axiomatic design, process control, affective design, patient safety, and mobile devices. He was Project Leader of WP6 in the EU-CATER Project, and a member of the Advisory Board of EU-SEACOOP project.

Panelist 5 : Designing for local/global markets : the case of Mimos Berhad

Mohamad Fauzi Yahaya (George Washington University, USA) is Director of Product Development at Mimos Berhad. Mimos is a Government agency under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. Its prime role is to undertake applied research in ICT, developing new technologies to support indigenous companies in the global market. Among the products that have been developed include communication products, sensor system for precision agriculture, notebook computers and intelligent surveillance system.

En. Fauzi holds several US Patents and Publications in International journals. He graduated with Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from GWU, Washington DC. His previous work experience includes Solectron Technology, and Motorola Research and Development group. He was in Motorola for 18 years where he developed two-way radios, cordless phone and energy products. His favourite quote is “Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing” by Warren Buffet.