Türkiye’de Ofis Mobilyası Sektöründe Kullanıcı Odaklı Tasarım: Ofis Sandalyesi Örneği

Abstract

Bu tez çalışmasında kullanıcı odaklı tasarım açısından ofis mobilya sektörü ele alınmış ve özelde ofis sandalye tasarımı üzerinden kullanıcı ihtiyaçlarını araştırma yöntemleri anlaşılmaya çalışılmıştır. Diğer ofis mobilyaları yerine özellikle ofis sandalyesinin seçilmesinin nedeni, ofis sandalyesinin; ergonominin ve kullanıcı odaklı tasarımın en çok odaklanıldığı ofis mobilyası olmasıdır. Günümüzde insanlar zamanlarının zamanlarının büyük bir bölümünü çalışarak ve ofis ortamında geçirmektedirler. Bu nedenle ofis sandalyesi, insanların vücudunun bir parçası olarak düşünülebilir. Bu durum da insan sağlığını doğrudan etkilemektedir. Ürün ve hizmet kalitesi açısından kullanıcı deneyimi gün geçtikçe önem kazanmaktadır. Bu da şirketlerin kullanıcı odaklı tasarıma daha çok önem vermelerine neden olmaktadır. Şirketler kullanıcı odaklı tasarımı bir rekabet unsuru olarak görmektedirler. Bu nedenle kullanıcı odaklı tasarım üzerine yapılan çalışmalar zaman içinde artmaktadır. Ofis, bir işletmeyi veya bir hizmeti yönetmek üzere organizasyonel faaliyetlerin yapıldığı alandır. Ofis sektörü meslek hastalıkları yönünden ele alınması gereken bir sektördür. Kullanıcı odaklı tasarımın amaçlarından biri ise insan vücuduna ve psikolojisine olumlu katkılar sağlamaktır. Ofis sandalyesi mobilya tasarımında özel bir kategoriye sahiptir. Kullanıcılar, ofis sandalyesinde hem estetik hem de fonksiyonel beklenti içindedirler. Ofis sandalyesi, uzun çalışma saatleri karşısında insan anatomisine uyum sağlamalıdır. Bu nedenle kullanıcı odaklı tasarım kavramının en belirgin olarak ele alındığı ürün, ofis sandalyesidir. Bu tez çalışmasının yapılmasının sebebi, refah seviyesi arttıkça insan sağlığına verilen önem artması ve bu sebeple kullanıcı odaklı tasarım kavramını değer kazanmasıdır. Dünyada ve Türkiye’de şirketlerin ürün tasarımından önce kullanıcı verisine nasıl ulaştıklarının bilgisine ulaşılmak istenmesidir. Bu araştırma tasarımcıların, kullanıcıların ihtiyaçlarını daha doğru ve etkin bir şekilde belirleyebilmelerine yönelik bir kılavuzun ilk aşaması olarak nitelendirilebilir. Böylece kullanıcı odaklı tasarım verilerine ulaşırken hangi yöntemlerin uygulandığı ve sonuçları daha net bir şekilde görülebilecektir. Sonuç olarak bu tez çalışmasının amacı, kullanıcı odaklı tasarım prensiplerine ve Türkiye’deki şirketlerin kullanıcıya verdikleri önem ve kullanıcı verilerine nasıl ulaştıklarının, ofis sandalyesi incelenerek belirlenmesidir.

Changes and unforeseen advancements in technology led to specific changes in economic and socio-cultural values. Along with the change in values, the society has shifted its focus from production to design. As a reflection of this shift, the needs and expectations of individuals have changed into a search for new experiences. Companies try to develop new products matching the users needs and expectations. To achieve this, they utilize certain design processes for their services and products, especially industrial design plays a significant role by creating meaningful products and features for users. User-centered design emerges as a new paradigm employing certain methods and sources to persist. The methods of the user-centered design mostly comprise of the methods of the design practice but concentrates on the user as the main source of user-centered design. A user-centered design process, instead of a technology and market driven one, is believed to lead to products that are more desirable, useful, in line with users’ needs and contributes to long-term use. Starting work of product design and development from the demands and needs of customer/user can provide an important advantage for business in competitive market. User-centered design also appears to be promising from the company perspective. User-centered design method is less expensive, less time-consuming, and more beneficial for the company, furthermore, more likely to meet the genuine needs of the consumer. The advantages of user-centered design also denote a change in the corporate insights and the structure of new product development organizations from conventional ‘R&D Centers’ or ‘Product Development Teams’ to emerging interdisciplinary ‘design teams’ or ‘design centers’. User-centered design approaches within the field of furniture design for workers, involves an act of embracing and balancing various end-user needs and assessing their relative importance for the user experience. Affective user satisfaction is considered one of the most important factors in designing consumer products. User-centered design is one of the most important research topics in the field of furniture. Looking at the humans’ daily routins, they spend most of their time by working in office environment and interacting with office furniture. Office environment is a prominent place for human’s productivity, motivation and comfort. Thus, office furniture is one of the most important component of office environment that affects the physical and physiological conditions of the employees. This thesis focused on office chair. The office chair can be thought as a sort of prothesis of human body in office environment. Office chairs constitute a special category in furniture design. The expectations of users on office chairs are offered a great functionality. Office chairs must conform to human anatomy for long working hours. An office chair, which is also known as a desk chair, is as the name suggests, and designed to use as a seat in an office. They can usually be adjusted on the back and height can swivel 360 degrees and manufacturers such as global office chairs strive to make them as comfortable as possible. Before searching user centered design methods, ‘users’ and their needs as a source of design should be explained, it is essential to clarify the terminological distinctions between the terms ‘user’, ‘consumer’, and ‘customer’, which are often used as synonyms for each other. According to the Product Development Management Association, a ‘user’ is “a person who uses a product or service to solve a problem or obtain a benefit, whether they purchase it or not” (Rosenau, 1996). In this sense, users may also be the consumer of the product or service, or may not directly consume the product or service, but may interact with it for a certain period. The term ‘consumer’ refers to a “firm’s current customers, competitors’ customers, or current non-purchasers with similar needs or demographic characteristics” (Rosenau, 1996). However, the scope of the term ‘consumer’ is paradoxical. The term ambiguously covers both customers and target users of the firms’ products or services. On the other hand, the ‘customer’ term is terminologically more lucid. The area of user-centered design positions the need of the user as the most prominent factor and studies majorly focus on enhancing the usability. Usability aspects needed and valued were commonly comfortable, practical, ergonomic, and sustainable furniture and other interior products that are convenient to handle, relocate, clean and maintain. As a result, “user need” is recognized as an important item in the concept of “user experience”. An accurate understanding of user needs is the essential step in making successful products and services. Usability comes to prominence depending on user needs. Both cognitive and physical usability of a system or a product are virtually another target of user-centered design. A representative user experience should have the first requirement that it meets the exact needs of the user without hassle or confusion. This should be followed by simplicity and elegance which generate products that are both joyful to own and use. The user experience is not merely providing the customer what they say they need or providing items from a checklist. Among a company’s offerings, the services of multiple disciplines, including marketing, engineering, design (graphic, industrial and that of the interface), should be seamlessly merged to achieve a high quality user-experience. Consequently, user experience is considered as “human-product interaction” as well and can be divided into two parts. One of them, the cognitive part, is the interaction between user and the product, namely interface, while the other part is the physical interaction between user and the products. In this thesis, user centered design is discussed as a physical interaction between users and products. Office chair is one of the finest examples in the center of user-centered design. The meaning of furniture as a product and the object is examined in relation with user and the product. In order to understand the searching method of user centered design, the methods in the world was investigated from literature and to understand the searching methods of user centered design in Turkey, it was interviewed with three office furniture company’s designers. The motivation of doing this research is needed to know about major user-centered design searching methods in complex products. There are countless research, surveys, articles and thesis prepared and applied by related researchers in furnishings. People are using various furniture and stuff in order to simplify their life in home or work. Lot of people generally spending time like sitting in front of the PC in their workplace. This kind of time spending is not good for their body health especially not good for posture and that effects their productivity, motivation and peace in negative way. Thus the office enviroment and especially office chairs are important to care about people's (and correspondingly employees) physical and psychological circumstances. Through this research, user research methods given to be understood in office furniture industry in Turkey. Furniture and other interior products can promote and motivate mobility, health and wellbeing. Pieces of furniture that are desirable to own and usable throughout a user’s lifetime. A link in the chain of processing that this research aims to reinforce is the existing lack of communication between the furniture industry and its users. This has led to insufficient knowledge about users’ needs. The research in industrial design focuses on the early phases of design process in user-centered design. Design is deemed as a whole process to develop solutions as from the needs of users. The process focuses on the interaction between the users, products and the context wherein the products are used. The interaction is the foundation of the design activity. The concept of needs is used in a broad sense and the intention is the effort to capture a holistic perspective. Consequently, this study aims to explore the research method of user-centered design in office furnitures and office chair design. The aim is to explore how user-centered design methods can be applied, modified and practiced to create conditions for the design of totally new or improved products. The design in user centered design concept is understood as a process to develop solutions with the starting point in users’ needs. A user-centered design process, instead of a technology and market driven one, is believed to lead to products that are more desirable, useful, in line with users’ needs and contribute to long-term use. The product category in focus is furniture and other interior products and the context of use is the office. The designer’s work is often limited by a series of preconditions and financial, technical, and time-related constraints, imposed by the client and the market. They work in projects with complex and diverse needs. Designers must please their clients, who are often not the end-user (Norman, 2002). According to interview with designers, who are working in office furniture companies in Turkey, the research methods of user centered design is not the main design method for designing the product and especially office chair. In Turkey, the design decisions are taken according to competitors and trends of the year. User needs are not focal point. If some technical data about user needs are needed, they make use of the data from Europe and standards.