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ItemA Framework for Cross-cultural Product Design(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2012) Rubin, Zachary L.In the modern globalized marketplace, industrial designers and consumer product companies are being challenged with cross-cultural design situations. While designers have the tools and instinct to produce culturally relevant designs, budgets and schedules inhibit the cultural immersion required to fully understand a foreign culture. This project investigates design as a cultural phenomenon and outlines a new framework that defines “culture,” in terms of industrial design. It aggregates research results from case studies and professional insight to provide Cultural Design methods that allow designers to efficiently extract valuable cultural elements. This framework informs the design process with cultural insights and helps develop products rich in cultural values that address local needs.
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ItemA Process to Apply Hardwood Pallets as Viable Raw Material for Furniture Making(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2012) Blake, Patrick A.Considering the abundance of wood pallets in today’s manufacturing and distribution system, the reckless disposal of pallets calls for a sustainable disposal solution to better utilize the pallets and conserve resources. For example, only 10 percent of wood pallets are recycled and one quarter of all wood in landfills is from pallets. This project examines the use of wooden pallets in furniture making since the furniture industry has seen an increase in hardwood prices and a decrease in the quality due to hardwood shortage. The outcome of this project is a process book that documents collection, transformation and use of pallet wood to construct furniture and offer a sustainable solution for pallet disposal. The book serves as a guide in utilizing processes and using the tools needed to obtain furniture grade wood from pallets for furniture making. While there may be other ways to address pallet disposal or furniture wood scarcity, this process book provides a sustainable solution making good use of discarded pallets.
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ItemDesign of an intelligent posture guidance system for workspace seating.(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011-06-06) Jalasutram, SrikanthSeating is an integral part of work environment. When people are at work, they often sit in chairs for long periods of time without changing postures. This results in reduced blood circulation in the body, especially in the buttock-thigh area causing muscle fatigue, pain and discomfort. Ergonomically designed task chairs adopt a passive approach to guiding people into better postures by providing adjustability inside the chair. However most people do not adjust their chairs because they fail to sense the need for changing posture. They are left to sensing the need to change posture through guesswork or extreme discomfort. This thesis proposes a new system to address this problem by sensing static posture in a seated person with the use of electronic sensors embedded in the seat, and by providing interactive feedback to static posture via sound, light and tactile channels. The new technology is an sensing-feedback mechanism embedded in a chair, that allows people to receive postural information and make body adjustments periodically to avoid pain and discomfort caused by prolonged seating.The feedback mechanism was tested with four subjects to determine its efficacy in generating posture change through pressure relief and user feedback was gathered in order to design the final prototype.
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ItemUniversal design of behind-the-counter workspaces(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011-01-20) Kar, GourabThis design thesis is part of CATEA's RERC workplace accommodations grant, and it adopts a human centered design methodology to research, develop, test and evaluate designs of behind-the-counter workspaces that maximize independence and participation of employees and increase their employment possibilities. Preliminary research shows that current designs of behind-the-counter workspaces do not accommodate needs of intended employees including the seated and standing users. According to the research, factors like task design and lack of ease of use have contributed to job loss and reduced employment. Through participatory research techniques and ergonomic studies, this project identified accessibility and usability needs and outlined basic and extended design guidelines for behind-the-counter workstations that would address these needs. Results from observational research, usability studies and user interviews were analysed to create design specifications for a range of workstations. The resulting workstation designs incorporate universal design guidelines and aim to expand employment opportunities for people with disabilities and older adults.
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ItemUniversal design of a future grocery retail checkstand(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-07-11) Vargas, Camilo A.This project is part of CATEA's RERC workplace accommodations grant, and it d research, develop, test and evaluate a retail checkout workstation that maximizes independence and participation of employees and increases their employment possibilities. Preliminary research shows that current designs of retail checkout workstations do not accommodate the intended employees including the seated and standing users. According to the research, factors like task design and ease of use have contributed to job loss and reduced employment. Through participatory research techniques and ergonomic studies, this project identified accessibility and usability needs and outline design guidelines of a retail workstation that would address these needs. Based on these guidelines and examining possible future retail checkout scenarios influenced by new trends and emerging technologies, future grocery retail checkout concepts were developed. These concepts try to address the need for wider accessibility and better interactions, while adding value through design that aims to increase job opportunities for people with disabilities provide a better experience for the end users and maximize store investment efficiency of front-end equipment.
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ItemA system that promotes healthy eating habits in preschoolers(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-07-10) Park, Ga BinAccording to The Future of Children, increasing rates of low nutritious food, energy dense, high caloric, consumption among children is one of the many causes leading to serious health risks of children get older (Daniels, 2006). This research focuses on how designing of a system that can promote healthy eating by guiding parents to educate and instill healthy eating habits in their preschoolers ages 3-5 at home. Some known causes of unhealthy eating habits and current methods promoting healthy eating are used to brainstorm a product concept: A parent cookbook and child cookbook. The concept is then used as an interviewing tool. Interviews and questionnaires are conducted with parents of preschoolers to understand their decision making related to food consumption and what rituals they are accustomed to, and their expectations in order to design an effective set of cookbooks. Qualitative data guides the discussion of concept refinement and the proposition of a product as one prevention method.
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ItemCNC machine design for wheelchair users: a case study of fadal vertical machining center 15(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-07-10) Ye, XiaoyiCurrent survey has showed that people with disability need equal work opportunity. Meanwhile, labor shortage is becoming more and more serious in existing manufacturing industry and there is less physical work involved in CNC machine operation. Thus it is a good opportunity for people with disability to work in manufacturing industry as CNC operators. In the preliminary research, observation, interview and domain research were conducted to understand activates of FVMC (Fadal Vertical Machining Center is a type of CNC machine) operators. Researchers found the existing FVMC are very inconvenient to use, because most of them were designed for the general public. Operator's performance was restricted by the poor design of the machines and the work area. As a result, many people, especially wheel chair users have found limited employment opportunities in the manufacturing industry. To address this problem, on one hand, we presented a study on the current FVMC. A Full size FVMC was mocked up and 9 wheelchair users and 6 able-body users participated in this study. They were asked to mimic to finish the tasks relate to FVMC operation. This study also aims at collecting data for universal FVMC design. On the other hand, based on the preliminary research two concept of FVMC design scenarios are also developed and evaluated by two groups of subjects. This study addressed limitations of wheelchair users with respect to CNC operation, especially reaching issues, and collected data about the preferred FVMC settings and design from wheelchair users and able-bodied people. At the end, design guidelines were developed for machine engineers or designers in two aspects: 1) improve currently available FVMC; 2) redesign FVMC that is safer and easier to use. These guidelines will increase the potential of employing wheelchair users alongside able-bodied people in the manufacturing industry.