Product-Personification method for generating interaction ideas

Abstract

Despite the importance of and growing interest in the interaction styles of interactive products and systems, there are few tools and methods for generating new interaction concepts that emerge as new design attributes. We probe and demonstrate a technique that is specifically appropriate for the ideation of interactions between a user and a product. With the idea of applying personality to a product, we developed the Product-Personification method. It is a structured ideation technique for exploring the interaction aspects of interactive products and system. The method allows users to consider new features and interactions by endowing a product with a personality. We argue that people tend to treat those products as if they possess unique personalities, as if they were human. Assigning a product’s characteristics and imagining its interaction with a user can be a generative method for designers. Four tools—namely, Product-Personality Cards, Product’s Talk Board, Relation Cards, and Tool Cards—are suggested to execute the method in four steps. Through the generative design workshops with professional designers, we assessed the usefulness of the proposed method in the public jukebox design project as well as determined the issues to be addressed for improvement.