Chaiwoo Lee and Sheng-Hung Lee Present at Academic Design Management Conference
by Adam Felts
AgeLab Research Scientist Chaiwoo Lee and AgeLab Research Assistant Sheng-Hung Lee gave presentations at the 2020 Academic Design Management Conference.
Chaiwoo Lee’s presentation, titled, “Development of data-based personas for user-centered design of the connected home,” discusses barriers that must be overcome for more advanced technology in the home to become accessible and desirable to consumers. In the industry’s current state, Dr. Lee observes a fundamental mismatch between the perspectives of innovators and actual users. Adoption of new home technologies remains mostly confined to tech enthusiasts rather than users who possess unmet needs that could be fulfilled by the technology.
To address this mismatch, Dr. Lee and other researchers who are part of the C3 Connected Home Logistics Consortium utilized survey findings to develop personas, or fictional representations of archetypal users, as a way to illustrate consumer needs that could be addressed by new home technology. Demographic information, self-reported technology adoption characteristics, and health characteristics were used to cluster the survey respondents into five personas. The personas highlight a high degree of variability in the home environments, available resources, and routines among prospective technology users, suggesting a need for higher flexibility and customizability in new home technology products.
Sheng-Hung Lee presented five papers at the conference, each of which describes a design project on which he worked and the relevant methodological underpinnings of his design process that emerged from the project. For example, in one paper, Mr. Lee highlights the humanity-centered design principles – which demand continual engagement with the community of users who stand to benefit from the design -- that guided his work in redesigning the Shanghai Library Innovation Space.
The 2020 Academic Design Management Conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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