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| Panasonic FZ1000 |
What you don’t count, doesn’t count
Ergonomics: The science of designing things which people use for maximum efficiency and safety.
I recently posted here, a major summary of my findings about camera ergonomics to date. That is quite long so here is a short version.
Several years ago I began to wonder why some cameras were a pleasure to use but others were not.
I studied functional anatomy of the human hand. I investigated haptics which is the science of touch, as it applies to cameras.
I bought and used many real cameras and made many (thirteen to date) mockup cameras in a variety of shapes and sizes. I used these to investigate design ideas, shapes, handles, thumb supports, dials, buttons, viewing arrangements and other types of controls.
I figured out that with good ergonomic design it is possible to make small to medium large cameras which work well in small, medium or large hands.
I discovered that individual likes and preferences are not a good guide to ergonomic design as they are idiosyncratic and subject to change.
I noticed that there are effective ways to describe the specifications, features, image quality and performance of a camera but until now there has been no framework within which and no language by which a person might describe and evaluate the ergonomics of a camera.
So I developed such a framework and language.
There are four Phases of camera use:
* Setup: This consists mainly of entering selections into a series of menus.
* Prepare: This is the few minutes before starting to make photos when the user makes settings of various modes and functions to suit the current circumstances.
* Capture: This is when photos are being made. This phase has the most critical requirements for ergonomic design as so many things must happen quickly without disrupting the capture flow.
In Capture Phase there are three ways by which the user interacts with the camera.
These are Holding, Viewing and Operating.
* Review: Photos captured are reviewed, assessed, deleted or sent to another place.
In order to make the camera do his or her bidding the user must perform a series of Tasks in each of the phases and interaction modalities.
Completion of each task requires Actions. These can be examined by time and motion study.
Anybody with a camera can do this. It is just a matter of paying attention to every action required to make a camera work.
This study can reveal the number and complexity of actions required to perform each task.
The tasks associated with each phase of use and interaction modality can be listed.
The efficiency with which each task is carried out can be evaluated.
It now becomes possible to measure and score a camera’s ergonomics with reference to specific criteria, independently of any user’s likes and preferences.
This post is headed by the aphorism ‘What you don’t count, doesn’t count’.
This sums up a major problem for camera design at the present time. If there is no framework, no language and therefore no ability to score a camera’s ergonomics, the subject has no status.
Many cameras these days are loaded with features, have fulsome specification, very good picture quality and good enough performance.
The main difference between cameras is the user experience and the main determinant of that is ergonomics.
I believe that scoring ergonomics is the key to further progress in camera design.
The task lists and scoring schedules can be found in the fullsummary on this blog.
