Identifying companies and interviewees

Design companies (versus freelancers) were identified as the target. This was due to higher number of designers based at design companies and their major role in design industry in general (Design Council, 2008). Practicing designers with medium/high management roles based in design companies were selected for interviews. This was in line with the overall focus of the research on experience designers as the key focus of information behaviour study. Nine UK-based design companies were selected UK-based on their main focus (product and industrial design) and for prior experience of working on a people-centred design brief (eight out of the nine design companies had attended the DBA Inclusive Design Challenge⁶, a major inclusive design contest in UK). Design companies with previous awareness, knowledge or experience of applying people-centred

6 DBA Inclusive Design Challenge is a major inclusive design contest in UK.

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design were primarily targeted for two main reasons. First, the overall aim of the study was focused on understanding designers’ information behaviour in regard to people information, therefore designers with a previous people-centred design background were preferred as they could better provide feedback and evaluate the existing people information, what was missing, and what needed to improve.

Thus, information dimensions and issues around them could be more thoroughly addressed. Second, it was assumed that companies involved with people-centred design processes, specifically inclusive design, were more likely to refer to anthropometric data sources. The nature of inclusive design practice demands better understanding of various users with various physical capabilities, hence needing anthropometric data more critically.

The size of the companies ranged from small (nine employees), medium (16-40 employees), to large (over 100 employees). The majority of companies in the study were small or medium sized enterprises. Interviewees’ average number of years of experience was 14 years. Apart from two interviewees (with two and four years of experience) interviewees’ years of experience ranged between 15 to 25 years. The two interviewees with less than five years of experience both had senior and specialist roles within the company (founding director and senior specialist).Table 4.4 presents a profile of each design company interviewed. The company’s area of expertise, role of interviewee in the company and their years of experience in the field, are listed in Table 4.4.

Table 4.4 Profiles of design companies and the designers interviewed

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4.3.2 Data collection methods

Face-to-face interviews and ranking questionnaires were adopted as complementary data collection methods, so as to provide both qualitative and quantitative information. This was in order to prohibit future limitations in the analysis of the collected information (Fidel and Green, 2004).The interview and questionnaire were designed to answer the seven research questions (addressed IN the interviews). Interviews were planned to mainly answer research questions one to five and question seven in terms of detailing dimensions of the initial framework and suggestions for future tools. The questionnaire mainly focused on question six, collecting preferences on existing anthropometric tools.

 Interview

The interviews were conducted in a structured but open-ended manner.

Questions were mainly about various dimensions of the framework and aimed to collect information regarding them. First, based on the identified research questions, a list of topics were drafted to be covered during the interview. These topics were then turned into interview questions considering format and order of questions. The content, format and order of interview questions was discussed with two other design researchers in order to find the best arrangements for questions and to avoid leading, generic or unclear questions. Finally, a pilot interview was conducted with one design consultancy prior to holding the nine interview sessions. Another researcher was present in the pilot interview session as the second interviewer. The pilot session proved helpful and resulted in the revision and further development of the interview techniques and the questionnaire arrangement. A list of the topics to be discussed and a brief breakdown of the session was sent to the design companies before the interview session. A copy of the interview questions is provided in Appendix A1.

 Questionnaire

Five anthropometric tools were presented to the designers, which they then graded through use of a ranking questionnaire. Two questions (research questions six and seven), one qualitative and one quantitative, were asked via the questionnaire. The designers were first asked to rank the five tools from one to five - where five was the highest - based on their own priorities for an anthropometric tool. They were then invited to orally comment on each tool and discuss their viewpoints and reasons for their ranking. This provided an opportunity to discuss and explore various aspects regarding designers’

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information behaviour. Questionnaires were presented to designers towards the end of the interview. A copy of the questionnaire is provided in Appendix A2. The criteria for the selection of the five tools were to cover a wide platform of sources, presentation formats, information details and also key attributes such as familiarity and accessibility of information and to provide a wide range of tools.

These criteria were chosen in order to provide comprehensive information on designers’ ‘preferences’ aspect of information, enriching discussions and providing insight into various dimensions of designers’ information behaviour. The tools in the format of book, handbook and card were physically demonstrated to the interviewees. Various printed images of software tools were made available in the interview sessions. Table 4.5 provides a short description of the tools and their formats. A detailed visual representation of the tools can be found in Appendix A3.

84 Table 4.5 Anthropometric tools description

Tool Tool description

Tool1 Humanscale (cards)

Humanscale (Dreyfuss, 1973) is a set of references in three volumes, each with two-sided pictorial selectors with rotating dials and

accompanying manuals. The interactive card has dimensioned charts of human figures, with factual data that shows the human body in some postures. The main feature of the tool is its rotating analogue wheel interface.

Tool 2

Older Adultdata (handbook)

Older Adultdata (Smith et al., 2000) is a handbook with many data tables and simple illustrations on each page incorporating data on age, sex, MEAN, SD, 5th percentile and 95th percentile of the various populations. It is one of a series of three books on Child, Adult and Older Adult data.

Tool 3 Ergo-CES (software)

Cambridge Engineering Selector (CES) software was originally developed in the Engineering Department of the University of

Cambridge (University of Cambridge, 2000). CES was used here as a construction prototype tool to present some ideas on a prototype anthropometric data tool called CES. As a software tool, Ergo-CES enables two-dimensional (2D) data visualisation and comparison through ‘browse’, ‘select’ and ‘search’ functions for relevant

anthropometric data on products and people.

Tool4 Bodyspace (textbook)

Bodyspace (Pheasant and Haslegrave, 2006) is a book published in many editions and widely used in design schools. The book

incorporates data and guidelines, and includes data for the UK population. It provides insights into the principles and practice of workspace design, anthropometrics, and so forth.

Tool 5 Dined (website)

Dined (Molenbroek, 2008) is an online web-based data source open for the use of public. The tool incorporates a number of key

measurements with the selection of age and gender and visualisation of percentages in an interactive diagram. The tool has been developed by TU Delft University and the data was collected in the Netherlands.