Application of ergonomics to the design of suction fans

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the correlation between the sense of touch when gripping a blow dryer and the emotional response based on the Kansei engineering theory. The relevant studies of the perception by hand grip are reviewed for the understanding of the consumers' emotional responses to a product. Meanwhile, this type of perception is also the key factor that determines whether they are going to buy or not. Various adjective vocabularies are reviewed in order to determine the emotional adjectives that are related to the sense of touch. A total of 35 vocabularies of this type are kept for the experiment of screening out the dryer handle specimens. After that, these emotional vocabularies are analyzed by the method of semantic differential. The resulting parameters that are obtained from real measurement serve as a reference for the design of new blow dryer styles. Furthermore, they are compared with the blow dryers that are commercially available. The correlation between the sense of touch by hand grip and the resulting emotions is a useful resource for determining the optimal blow dryer handle design. A new type of dryer handle with the unique sense of touch is created. It provides users with a new approach of interactions between the scenarios with the sense of touch by hand grip and the resulting emotions. For the past decade, user experience (UX) has developed into the core concept of human-computer interaction (HCI). It is an approach of describing the resulting emotions and responses that are generated by a user when using a product under particular operating conditions. 20 males and 20 females participated in the experiment and they are asked to carry out the tasks that are selected for the experiment in this study. The results indicated that for the one-handed operation of the new blow dryer design, its reachable range of operation is more average and it includes more types of sense of touch within its most comfortable range. It performs better than those commercially available products from the aspect of the sense of touch. By comparing the rate of improvement, a designer can perform detailed modifications on a product or obtain a better reference when making a design decisions.