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1 Introduction

In the field of product design, when considering product modeling from a concept, there are countless possibilities. It will also be influenced by factors such as the designer’s own aesthetics and design experience.

However, if the product design is not considered from the user’s viewpoint, the designed product may have problems such as the user does not know how to use or the user experience is not good.

Today, user experience is getting more and more attention. The design process called User Experience Design (UXD) is widely used in major design fields. Among them, the most widely used is in the user interface (UI) design, the web design field. In the field of product design, designers are constantly trying to incorporate user experience design into the product design process. Various user-centered product design process are presented, but they did not specifically consider the part of the modeling.

2 Background and Related Work

For the user experience design process, there is no single answer suitable for all cases. Among them, one approach to improve user experience is Human-Centered Design (HCD). From the viewpoint of usability, it is also called User-Centered Design (UCD).

It was originally proposed for interactive systems to improve system usability.

As the content, mainly model user experience from survey analysis, create concept to realize this experience, make prototype and evaluate. And if necessary depending on the result of the evaluation, return to the previous step and repeat the work (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.
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(Source: ISO 9241-210:2010(E), p. 11)

Human-centered design activities

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Today many design companies are seeking their own unique user experience design process. But most of them are similar to the idea of this human-centered design process: from the user survey to concept design and do design, receive user feedback and improve the design. The following example is TOSHIBA’s user experience design process (Fig. 2):

Fig. 2.
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TOSHIBA UX design process (Source: TOSHIBA DESIGN CENTER) Exploring needs from users’ current situation survey, extracting essential issues, researching, then thinking, realizing and verifying based on essential tasks.

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However, the solution derived from these user experience design process is often a system or a service, but not a specific product.

For example, in order to be able to pay quickly when shopping and avoid queuing, it is not to make an improvement design of the cash register, but even losing the action of accounting, and it leads to a new lifestyle of the future and it must be considered in the system (Figs. 3 and 4):

Fig. 3.
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Amazon go: a new kind of store with no checkout required use the Amazon go app to enter the store, just take the products you want then go out. Payments will be automatically completed in the app

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Fig. 4.
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Alibaba Buy+: VR shopping without going out, you can buy global products at home. Payment will also be completed in an instant

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Although it is said that in order to solve a problem, it should not be confined to design a specific product, but for a product designer, such a user experience design process still lacks in the final product modeling design part.

3 General Method for Designing Modeling

When designing product modeling, product designers sometimes brainstorming to draw a lot of different styles of design, then choose the best one. Sometimes find inspiration around a theme. Different product designers have different approaches based on their own design logic. According to the survey and analysis, I have summarized the following major sources of inspiration:

3.1 Inspiration from Psychology

The inspiration that psychology brings is to consider what kind of impression products leave in the minds of users.

For example: black reflects mature, stable, scientific and technological sense and stability. The same coffee poured into cups of different colors, the coffee in yellow cup tastes lighter, the coffee in green cup tastes sour, and the coffee in red cup tastes the most fragrant (Figs. 5 and 6).

Fig. 5.
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DELL VOS

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Fig. 6.
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Nestle mug (Color figure online)

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3.2 Expressing the Beauty of Materials

Different materials can also give people different feelings, and different designs can be derived by expressing the beauty of the material (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7.
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The peacock chair. The same chair with different materials, wood shows a soft affinity, velvet feels warm

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3.3 Expressing the Beauty of Geometry

Mathematics has a rigorous beauty. It is often used by designers in product design.

The geometric principles often used by designers are: Golden ratio, Root rectangles, and so on (Figs. 8 and 9).

Fig. 8.
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(Source: Geometry of Design: Studies in Proportion and Composition)

Volkswagen beetle & golden ratio

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Fig. 9.
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(Source: Geometry of Design: Studies in Proportion and Composition)

Barcelona chair & root rectangles

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3.4 Expressing the Beauty of Culture

Different cultures breed different people. Each region has its own unique design style that is unmatched by other regions. Tradition represents the indelible beauty (Fig. 10):

Fig. 10.
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Ming style chair from China & egg chair from Denmark

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3.5 Inspiration from Nature

There is a design method called bionic design. Designers draw inspiration from the nature or shape of creatures and have designed many excellent products (Fig. 11).

Fig. 11.
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Sydney opera house inspired by eggshells

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3.6 Details Determined by Commercial Factors

Products for the company are for profit, so they have to consider commercial factors.

For example: Why milk is sold in square boxes and cola is sold in round bottles?

Because soft drinks are mostly drunk directly, cylindrical container is more convenient to hold in hand to drink. Milk must be considered for storage, square box saves storage space (Fig. 12):

Fig. 12.
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Cola in round bottles & milk in square box

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3.7 Details Determined by the Function of the Product

In order to achieve a certain function, the shape of the product needs to be designed in some way, then the design will be more convenient to use, etc. The function of the product limits the shape of the product to some extent. From another perspective, it also points out the direction for product design.

For example: Why the ticket gate where reads the Suica card tilts 13°?

The designer, Shunji Yamanaka, learned from the observation and analysis of pedestrians who passed the ticket gate then found that there are often mistakes in reading cards. Through constant attempts, finally reached the conclusion that the card reading error is the smallest when tilting the card reading place by 13° (Fig. 13).

Fig. 13.
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The Suica ticket gate

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4 The Process of Product Modeling Design Applying UX

It can be seen from the above that product designers actually consider the usability and user experience when designing the modeling of a product, but there is not a uniform systematic process, so the result of the design is often influenced by the designer’s own aesthetics and design experience. However, each designer has his own design logic and a design process cannot fit into all designers and design projects. The design process should not only be designed to design a product with a better user experience, but also should be designed to serve the designer to work more smoothly.

It is more important to systematically organize the factors that determine the design of modeling, analyze the relationship between the primary and secondary according to each situation, and find their balance in the design.

4.1 The Factors that Determine the Design of Modeling

According to the analysis, I have preliminarily sorted out several major factors that determine the design of modeling. They are (Fig. 14):

Fig. 14.
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Factors that determine the design of modeling. The “Theme” comes from the previous user surveys and analysis, to ensure that this part can be combined with a variety of different user experience design processes

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In a variety of different product design processes, combined with the results of previous user surveys and analysis, and taking into account the above factors, the product design will be more reasonable.

4.2 How to Design Product Modeling Applying UX

In order to incorporate the user experience when considering factors that determine the design of modeling, maybe we can consider the modeling of the product from the following aspects:

  • 1. From users impact on modeling style.

    For example: understand the lifestyle, preferences, etc. from user analysis, make collages and decide the style of the whole modeling.

  • 2. Structure for problem solving.

    While the structure limited the modeling, It shows the direction of modeling.

  • 3. Shape for easy use.

    In terms of ergonomics, present size and shape.

  • 4. Shape for presenting operation action.

    With the goal that users can operate naturally.

  • 5. Designer’s aesthetic sensation and design experience.

4.3 Future Works

The final molding design process needs farther exploration.

  1. 1.

    The factors determine the design of modeling are still not perfect. In order to obtain more information that is closer to the real situation of the designer, an interview or a questionnaire survey will be required in the future.

  2. 2.

    After the final modeling program is proposed, how to verify is also a problem that needs further discussion.