View article

Product designers working for design agencies discuss the objectives of the project with the client at the start of a project. Product designers begin their search for candidate materials based on these discussed objectives (Ashby, 1999, van Kesteren et al, 2006). In current materials selection, not only functional aspects of materials are considered, also user-interaction aspects such as aesthetics, perceptions and emotions, are considered (Ashby and Johnson, 2002; van Kesteren et al, 2005). This implies that these aspects need to be specified in the requirements as well. However, Ferrante, Santos en de Castro write about materials and aesthetic design:“apparently this is a subjective area, difficult even to qualify…”(2000). Specifying the requirements on user-interaction aspects of materials is difficult as these aspects are often subjective, however, is needed for an efficient materials selection. Furthermore, people are tended to talk about function rather than about aesthetics of products (Denton and McDonagh, 2006, Karana and van Kesteren, 2006). Especially for non-designers it is difficult to talk about user-interaction aspects. However, in user-centred design it is required to discuss user-interaction topics in addition to functional topics. User-interaction topics include the specific interaction requirements of the target group such as usability and product experiences. Previous research shows that product designers encounter that clients are often not able to specify the user-interaction aspects of materials they desire in a new product (van Kesteren et al. submitted). Consequences are that product designers start a search based on criteria that can be …