A user-centered development model for innovation design in automated nursing beds

Abstract

With the improvement of technology and living standard, nursing beds have become more automatic and intelligent, while gradually moving from the ward into the home. In addition to functional technology, the emotional experience has become the dominant factor influencing user purchases. Therefore, it is particularly important to consider user emotional requirements and performance metrics such as usability, ease of use in a coordinated way while maintaining high design efficiency. This paper presents a user-centered development model (UCDM) for products that covers the entire design process. The UCDM successfully complements the generic user-centered design (UCD) approach to effectively and efficiently complete product design. It is validated with the example of an automated nursing bed, which ensures the company's profitability while satisfying users' emotional requirements. Firstly, the Kano model is integrated with Quality of Functional Deployment (QFD) to help designers better understand user needs and locate key design areas and key technical issues for new product innovation. Then, Theory of Creative Problem Solving (TRIZ) is applied to efficiently propose available alternatives to technical issues. And later with the help of Kansei evaluation (KE) methods, the alternatives are scientifically evaluated and decided while providing a reference basis for subsequent optimization. Finally, all the new nursing bed alternatives designed according to the proposed method have been highly evaluated and satisfied by users. The results demonstrate that the proposed design method can help designers to accurately complete user-centered product innovation, scientifically guide the whole design process, and verify the scientific and effective performance of the UCDM.