The complexity of products is increasing as more and more functions are included in them, resulting in higher demands on users' ability to understand the product. Although, industry and academia agree that human aspects are important for the success of the product, there are few methods that support the designers regarding these factors in the synthesis part of the design work.

This licentiate thesis presents a research work aimed at developing a design procedure for product synthesis which considers the interaction between user and product.

The theoretical foundation of the research consists of theories from the areas of engineering design, ergonomics and industrial design, and theories of psychology such as cognitive psychology and human activity theory. An observation study, a questionnaire survey, supervisions and observations of student projects, and tests on different approaches of methods form the empirical approach.

A design procedure based on an existing procedure is developed. The main addition is that the new procedure introduces the user aspects by treating the artefact which is to be designed and its user as a user-technical system instead of a purely technical system. A user-technical process constitutes the foundation of the procedure, in which the user actions and the technical functions are broken down in a hierarchical structure. In this way, different design concepts can be generated which also consider the user.

Furthermore, theories have been developed as a basis for the procedure. A classification of users is made and different types of signals between user and product have been identified. A new structured scenario method and additional guidelines for the way in which the design team should work are included in the procedure.

The complexity of products is increasing as more and more functions are included in them, resulting in higher demands on users' ability to understand the product. Although, industry and academia agree that human aspects are important for the success of the product, there are few methods that support the designers regarding these factors in the synthesis part of the design work.

This licentiate thesis presents a research work aimed at developing a design procedure for product synthesis which considers the interaction between user and product.

The theoretical foundation of the research consists of theories from the areas of engineering design, ergonomics and industrial design, and theories of psychology such as cognitive psychology and human activity theory. An observation study, a questionnaire survey, supervisions and observations of student projects, and tests on different approaches of methods form the empirical approach.

Products with Consideration to User lnteractions

A design procedure based on an existing procedure is developed. The main addition is that the new procedure introduces the user aspects by treating the artefact which is to be designed and its user as a user-technical system instead of a purely technical system. A user-technical process constitutes the foundation of the procedure, in which the user actions and the technical functions are broken down in a hierarchical structure. In this way, different design concepts can be generated which also

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consider the user.

Furthermore, theories have been developed as a basis for the procedure. A classification of users is made and different types of signals between user and product have been identified. A new structured scenario method and additional guidelines for the way in which the design team should work are included in the procedure.