Interaction-oriented Creative Design for Everyday Product Sign

l2 2
WU Zhi-jun , , LI Liang-zhi , Chen Yu , NA Cheng-ai
2 l
1. Department of Industrial Design, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan, China
2, Design School, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China
Email: zjwu@hnust.cn.li-liangzhi@126.com.bowu99@126.com

Ahstract-The purpose of this paper is to present interaction­ These strategies and processes can effectively assist
oriented creative design strategies and processes for everyday designers in encouraging design creativity, further improving
product sign. Based on the semiotic triangle of product sign, the performance of innovative product designing.
our work explored the interaction relations between user­
product sign-human and interaction process, outlined the II. PRODUCT SIGN AND INTERACTION
triangular relationship of interaction and the systemic
interaction process model. The results suggest that interaction A. Product sign[6]
in design involves social interaction, user-product interaction
and human-product interaction, and involves macro
In general, In general, consumers have no access to the
interaction process and micro interaction process (cognition,
designers of the products they interact with. Thus the
affect and behavior). Based on these, our work offered consumers' interpretation of the design is based
interaction-oriented creative design strategies and processes, predominantly on their interaction with the product.
and presented two everyday product design cases. These Designers only communicate attributes such as elegance,
strategies and processes are very useful for enhancing functionality, mode-of-use and social significance through
designers' creative performances as well as enhancing the medium of the product (see figure 1). This semiotic
satisfactory judgments of users' to product sign. perspective on viewing products as signs capable of
representation and interacting activities between users and
Keywords- interaction; product sign; creative design; cognition these product signs have become the focuses of user­
centered creative design.
L
-
INTRODUCTION , ,' -- .........
,
I" Interaction ,

The user-centered design (UCD) for creative product,

highly valued these days as a panacea for a successful design,
I
�
still produces many user-unfit designs, [I]One reason for this
is that the interaction and the dynamic process between
product sign, user and human often are not deeply analyzed
Designers
,�u'�"1 �
,
I
I

and understood in the early stage of conceptual design, The ,

" I
'
current association with interaction in design is that of ........ _
-
,

human computer interaction (HCI) in "interaction design",
often also associated with "experiential design", Moreover,
there is a common misunderstanding that interaction design
is fundamentally concerned with the digital medium, It is
true that the new digital products have helped designers
focus on interaction and the experience of human beings as
they use products, [2-3lHowever, interaction of everyday
product is also very important, and it is not only involves
product-user interaction, but also involves designer-product­
user interaction and social interaction between product, user,
human. But crrrenent interaction research in everyday
product design only focuses on user-interaction, interactive
technology systems and user interface design.[4-SlTherefore,
for best meeting the potential future users' needs, one of the
pivotal factors is to analyze the relations and processes of
interaction and construct interaction-oriented creative design
stragies and processes.
Our work will focus on the multiple aspects of interaction
in everyday product sign design, and then provide with
interaction-oriented creative design strategies and processes.
Figure I. Communication between designer and users
Product sign is to form and present meanings by material
sign-vehicles, and in some contexts, these meanings can
obtain appropriate interpretation by inter-effecting dynamic­
interactive process between product sign and users. This
interpretative process of user to product sign can be
illustrated by the famous semiotic triangle in Figure 2. The
comers of this triangle are occupied by sign-vehicle, user,
and meaning, by symbol, thought, and referent, by signifier,
interpretant, and signified. Within this triangle, Charles
Morris divided semiotics as the study of signs into three
branches: syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. [7]
• syntax is the study of the relations between sign­
vehicles (to which some physical existence is ascribed) -
without regard to meanings.
• Semantics is the study of the relations between signs
and their designate, particularly the objects to which they
apply, their references.

978-1-4244-7974-0110/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE

365
 pragmatics is the study of relations between signs and
• C.
users; it includes psychological, biological, and sociological
phenomena that occur in the functioning of signs.
User
Thought
I nterpretant
Stands for (Imputed relation)
Figure 2. The Semiotic Triangle
B. Interaction
Interaction design is always defined as the design of
interactive products to support the way people communicate
and interact in their everyday and working lives.[8] And
Buchanan defined interaction design broadly as: ""'focusing
on how human beings relate to other human beings through
the mediating influence of products sign". And the product
signs are more than physical objects. They are experiences or
activities or services, all of which are integrated into a new
understanding of what a product sign is or could be. These
views provide the basis understanding of interaction in
design, which evolved from interests in the impact of the
product sign! artifact on social interaction within and through
use in some special situations or cultural contexts. This
understanding suggested a triangular relationship between
user/human product sign! artifact - person/human (see
Figure 3).[2]
User-human!
Social interaction
User/ human Person! human
Product sign / artifact
Figure 3. The Triangular Relationship ofinteraction
366
Interaction Process
Interaction process describes that how users achieve the
service values of product sign. And this process involves two
aspect features, namely (a) macro interaction process in the
social interaction and (b) micro interaction process in the
individual user-product interaction.[8]
• The macro interaction process. In the macro model,
interaction is the process by which user uses the product or
affects another. According Figure 3, the macro interaction
process emerges in the interaction between "user- product
sign- human" in some special situations and cultural contexts.
And this process involves three types, namely (a) user<---� -
product sign, (b) user<----� product sign<----� human<---� -
user, and (c) {user<---�
- product sign}<----� human. In this
process (c), the interaction of user and product sign is
consider as a whole sign to interact with human.
• The micro interaction process. In the macro interaction
process, the interaction of "user<----� product sign" plays a
critical role. When products are to be considered as signs that
are interpreted by users, it is very important to consider
user's responses to product sign in the process of "user<----�
product sign" interaction. According to Nathan Crilly's
synthesis of the orthodox views, [6] the user's response to
product signs comprises three aspects of cognition (cognitive
response), affect (affective response) and behavior
(behavioral response), and cognition is followed by affect
and behavior. This user's response process of product sign
can be outlined as figure4.
User's Response
�
Aesthetic Semantic
Figure 4. User's Response to Product Sign
Cognition. Cognitive response refers to the judgments that
the user makes about the product based on the information
perceived by the senses. These judgments include evaluation
of the products' perceived qualities. Cognition plays a
pivotal role in the process of user-product sign interacting, in
the existing literature, the following three categories are
commonly used to describe cognitive response method to
product sign: aesthetic impression, semantic interpretation
and symbolic association.
Aesthetic impression may be defined as the sensation that
results from the perception of attractiveness (or
unattractiveness) in products, especially in the components
of product's visual form, such as lines, colors, textures and
details. Semantic interpretation may be defined as what a
product is seen to say about its function, mode-of-use and
qualities. Symbolic association may be defined as the
perception of what a product says about its owner or u.ser:
the personal and social significance attached to the desIgn.
Cognitive response to product visual form has been
described separately. However, these aspects of response do
not operate independently, but are highly inter-related, each
one influences the others. For example, assessment of what a
product is (semantic interpretation), may influence
judgments on the elegance of a design (aesthetic impression)
and the social values it may connote (symbolic association).
Affect. Affective response is commonly used to desc:ibe
the emotions, moods and feelings elicited by product SIgn.
Affect has been described as part of the user's psychological
response to the semiotic content of the product. Users may
experience a variety of potentially contradictory feelings
towards an object, such as admiration, disappointment,
amusement and disgust. Desmet has proposed five categories
for the affective responses that product signs may elicit:
instrumental emotions, aesthetic emotions, social emotions,
surprise emotions and interest emotions.
Behavior. Comprising the psychological response
(cognition and affect), behavioral response describes user's
manipulation toward product sign. Behavioral response
involves three levels usage-style toward product signs:
affordance, friendliness and desirability. Health and rational
behavioral response demand designers create product signs
to provide a behavioral service of consumer's expectation for
users.
The further analysis of interaction process in the context
of design showed that interaction can be understood either
with reference to the design process (designer- user­
interaction), or with reference to use (user-product sign­
interaction/user-product-human-interaction), [2] synthesizing
these two processes, the systemic interaction process model
can be outlined as figureS.
Designing /
Research findings of user experience and condition
Figure 5. The Systemic Interaction Process Model
367
III. INTERACTION-ORIENTED CREATIVE DESIGN
The issue of how to enhance design creativity for
everyday product signs has been vigorously discussed among
design researchers. 'Creative' is often taken a�. a
qualification of a final design outcome, but cognItI�e
psychology associates it with design activity, namely, certam
strategies and processes that have the potential to produce
'creative' products. [9] Therefore, it is necessary to establish
concrete strategies and processes with a distinct cognitive
process of design problem solving for creative design for
everyday product signs.
A. Strategies
In the traditional UCD process, initial user research
defines the problem so that the designer always aims at
anticipating eventual use during the design process by
engaging people, or information about people, who are
considered to be potential future users, and the final goals are
to create product signs which a�e eas� to understa�d, eas� to
use, etc. [lO] However, interactIOn-orIented creatIve desIgn
focuses on not only 'using' , but also 'interacting' between
user, product sign and human. So that the strategies involves
two aspects attributes:
• Aiming at "user<-------+ product sign<-------+ human<-------+
user" interaction at the initial stage for product sign design.
By this aim, designers can discover and define the
unexpected creative expecting values of interaction,
involving both of user-product interaction (cognition, affect
and behavior) and social interaction.
Focusing on the interaction processes, but not objects
•
or static users in the creative design activity. By analyzing
the interaction process, designers can discover more
unexpected needs, constrains and solutions.
B. Processes
Design process here refers to that period of time before a
design product sign is produced, in most cases before even a
detailed drawing is produced. Creative design always
establishes on the basis of new creative design process. This
creative process is a sort of non-routine designing that is
often characterized by the occurrence of 'new constrains and
mapping relations' or 'unexpected new variables'. Designers
often discover hidden variables, constrains and mapping
relations in PDP and that is essential for creative design. The
process of designing an interaction-oriented product sign is
complex and needs feedback at early stages of conceptual
design and prototyping. According to systemic interaction
process model (see figureS), macro interactions between
user-product sign-human are the basis of design goals, and
micro interactions are the key attributes for designs values
realizing. Therefore, the core activities in creative everyday
product sign designing process mainly involve five phrases
as below:
·Defining object for creative design (systemic or part of
communication).
·Defining macro interaction process (user<-------+ product
sign, user<-------+ product sign<-------+ human<-------+ user, or
{user<-------+ product sign}<-------+ human).
 'Defining micro interaction process (product sign­
cognitive response- affective response- function, product
sign- cognitive response- behavioral response- function,
product sign- cognitive response- behavioral response­
affective response- function, or a product sign- cognitive
response- affective response- behavioral response­
function).
·Analyzing user experience (cognitive experience,
affective experience and behavioral experience).
'Designing structure (case-based reasoning or sign
referencing).
IV. CASE STUDIES
These are two cases of everyday product sign design
based on interaction. The first case is an emotional bag for
fine ladies and to meet their fashionable culture and
aesthetics expectation (see figure6). When the user carry this
bag on her arm walking on the street, she and the bag
integrate together to be a sign to interact with other human
and obtain their fashionable, social and aesthetic values.
The second case is Philippe Starck's Juicy Salif lemon
squeezer (see figure7), a product that has so-far sold over
550000 units since its launch in 1990. In this case, the aim of
this product is not to squeeze lemons, even though as a
lemon squeezer it works. Sometimes you need some more
humble communicative service: on a certain night, the young
couple, just married, invites the parents of the groom to
di=er, and the groom and his father go to watch football on
the TV. And for the first time the mother of the groom and
the young bride are in the kitchen and there is a sort of
[11]
malaise-this squeezer is made to start the conversation.
So that, the main value of this product sign is to launch an
interaction between the mother of the groom and the bride in
a special situation.
Figure 6. 'Carrying Her Story' Bag Figure 7. Lemon Squeezer
V. CONCLUSION
Interaction between user-product sign-human plays a
significant role in constructing creative product strategies
and processes model. Interaction may provide users with
aesthetic, semantic, and symbolic meanings, and operational
and social services values. Our work has brought about two
368
creative design strategies and creative processes with five
steps. In these strategies and processes, designers act as
interpreters of user-product-human interaction, and their
interpretation depends not only on their knowledge domain
but also on users' experiences and contexts. Thus, product
design is affected by differences between designers' and
users' concepts of a product sign. However, there are only
shallow researches about interaction relations and processes,
and the further comprehensive analysis of interaction
between designers, users, product sign and human, may be
the future work for designers in creative everyday product
sign designing activities.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was supported by the Scientific Research Fund
of Hunan Province Education Department, No.08C332.
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