High Touch: Human Factors in New Product Design

In designing a new consumer product, integration of human factors principles is greatly emphasized. However, relatively few attempts have been made to systematically include ergonomic design in the conceptual design phase. High Touch is a product design strategy that uses existing technology systematically to design a new consumer product emphasizing user-friendliness and customer satisfaction. To realize this objective, High Touch design uses several analysis scheme such as identification of implicit needs, realization of potential demand and systematic application of ergonomic considerations into product design. Hierarchical analysis of human variables, product functions and technology attributes is the basic tool of the High Touch design. In this paper, High Touch design process is introduced and a series of new products developed using High Touch design process is demonstrated.