Application of the Multi-touch Tabletop to the Design Evaluation during the Initial Phase of Product Development

Abstract

To support human factors evaluators, a cooperation system using the multi-touch tabletop computer is developed. The cooperation system, so called COSY, can show static information from drawings and dynamic information from design documents on the multi-touch tabletop computer. Because multiple human factors evaluators can discuss their opinions and draw the final conclusion on the current product design around the COSY. The COSY was applied to evaluate digital indicators for nuclear power plants from the human factors perspective iteratively from the initial design phase before high fidelity prototyping. It is concluded from the application that (1) since human factors evaluators could easily figure out the dynamic behavior, work together for each design issue, and complete their design reviews in a short time, they preferred the COSY as the evaluation support system (2) product designers liked the COSY because they could get fast design feedbacks. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.