STEDEX '10

Product developers are coming to understand how the interaction between users, products and environment can play an essential role in product development process (Green & Klien 1999:92; Taylor et al. 1999:217; Von Hippel & Kat2 2002:821). These authors indicate that a successful product or system requires a high level of interaction between designers and users. In many cases, however, designers are still predicting the users interactions with products based on their previous knowledge and experience. Popovic (1999:26) argues that in most product development processes, designers still find it difficult to predict theories concerning users’ needs with respect to the products they use. Thus, according to Jones (1992:216), designers should take part and engage more in the social life of the users by experiencing their lifestyles.

Norman (1988:85) points that there are a number of cases of products that were produced without proper research into users needs and limitations which led to problems involving users’ interactions with those products. In general, research reveals that non-physical merits of product-user experience–such as aesthetics, emotion, pleasurability, product ‘soul’ and cultural factors–tend to be neglected, overlooked, misjudged or entirety ignored in the pursuit of factors such as physical styling, functionality, usability and ergonomics. In most cases, the manufacturers tend to make the least amount of change possible to make an existing product acceptable to the targetted culture (Lawson et. al 2003:9). Röse et al. (2001) and Rodriguez et al (2006) also claim that many non-physical aspects of designing a product have been overlooked in product development processes.