Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
in our daily things. Mechanical design is not only designing machines, but it also
includes these daily things. Again, motion and change characterizes mechanical
design.
We drink from a bottle or open a can in astonishingly diverse ways. Some would
like to drink in one gulp. Others would like to drink sip by sip. These differences are
deeply associated with emotion. If you are very thirsty (motivation), then you
would drink in one gulp, although usually you may drink little by little. Then, you
would feel very happy. The bottle is the same, but its effect is very much different.
Thus, the value of a bottle varies by what motivates you to drink and by how you
drink. Thus, we should note that products are not evaluated at the time of delivery,
but how it is used affects product value. Engineers have been discussing hardware
product value at the time of delivery. How good
!
final product qualities are their
main concern. But users evaluate our product when they use.
Before diversi
!
cation comes on top of everyone's mouth, our products, espe-
cially daily products, are used in a wide variety of ways. We should focus more on
operations. Such uses of daily goods are not called operations, but the essence is the
same. There is no difference between a commercial airliner and our daily goods.
Users are humans and humans act as they like. We have to keep a close watch on
operations and we would
!
find out how much emotion is associated with and we
have to characterize them to design products best
!
fit for our customers.
12.6 Tangibility and Emotion
What differentiates hardware from software is tangibility. As product materials are
getting softer and softer, haptics is increasing its importance. We cannot predict
how the product will behave until we touch it, if the material is soft. But what is
more important from the standpoint of emotional engineering is once we touch
something, we have a feeling something like attachment. This effect is very much
associated with the effect called the endowment effect in behavioral economics.
iPod is a good example. Although many other companies provided the same kind of
products with almost equal quality of functions, customers preferred iPod. It is well
known that the touching feeling played a very important role. When the customers
take up iPod and hold it, they feel it
!
fits into their hand perfectly. Other companies
thought a case is a case and if it can accommodate the parts and can be held, then it
is OK. Apple thought in a different way. If a customer holds it and feels that it
perfectly
!
fits into his or her hand, then he or she feels it is his or her product. iPod
introduced titanium for a case and although titanium is dif
!
cult to grind, Japanese
small companies succeeded to
!
finish it like mirror. This served to generate a feeling
on the part of a customer that it is his or her product when he or she holds it.
Touching is of course motion, but engineers did not realize until then that
touching constitutes a great portion of product value and such factors have not been
counted in as functions. This may not be technical functions, but this is certainly an
important factor in product value.
