Vol.4 No.3 2012

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Research paper : Designing products and services based on understanding human cognitive behavior (M. Akamatsu et al.)−145−Synthesiology - English edition Vol.4 No.3 (2012) 2 Why cognitive behavior in actual daily scenes?In ergonomics, a discipline to realize the product and system compatible with humans, the first thing to do is to correctly understand the characteristics of human users. Therefore, the human characteristics are studied by using the knowledge and methodology of psychology, physiology, medicine, and engineering, such as mechanical and information engineering. These methods attempt to understand humans in the framework of natural sciences. In the natural science approach, factors that are irrelevant to the essence of the phenomena under investigation are considered as disturbances, and it is very important to control such disturbances. If the researcher sets up a laboratory experiment that reconstructs the environment in which the product is used by appropriately controlling the disturbances, it is possible to create the product and environment that is compatible with the sensory function of, for example, elderly people[5]. This approach is effective in cases where the research subject is the interface between the person and the product or system, such as the design for display or shape of the product. However, there is a limit to studying the function and contents of the product, system, or service. That is because the user perceives the value by using the product or system or receiving the service in the context of daily life, and not in the laboratoryNote 1).As a person lives in the daily life, the environment constantly changes and the individual recieves various stimuli and information. The brain and the body change to adapt to them, and behavior occurs. People interact continuously with the ever-changing environment, and the individual also changes continuouslyNote 2). When we use some device in our daily life, we behave not only according to the device, but also according to the situation in which the device is placed. For example, when one is using a copy machine, one’s behavior is affected by the way the paper is being discharged, the placement of the lid of the device, and the operations one had been doing, and not just according to what is displayed on the copy machine display. This is called the situated action[6]. Therefore, unless the person is using the product or receiving the service in the actual situation, it is difficult to correctly know how the person uses the product or receives the service.What is frequently done to obtain the evaluation of usage is to make a prototype, have some assumed user try out the product in a trade show or an exhibition, obtain the comments on it, and find points that must be improved[4][7]. However, against our intentions, it is difficult to reproduce the usage in actual daily life with this approach. Also, since the starting point is the realization of the requirement imagined by the developer side, the true requirement of the user may not be met even if improvements are made. The developer must start by understanding the user’s situation of use and then make a product that is highly likely to satisfy the user. Therefore, a research method that clarifies what is needed by the person, what the person wants, and what pleases the person is necessary, to discern the user’s true requirement that may not have been imagined by the developer. This method is not a pure cognitive science method to merely understand the cognitive behavior of the person, but the content obtained from the research must lead to designing the functions of the product or service.Most of the human behavior is carried out unconsciously, and a research method that allows analysis of how the person felt and how he/she made decisions done on-site is necessary, rather than a post-event method like a questionnaire survey. In this paper, we explain the cognitive chrono-ethnography (CCE) that was developed to understand humans by incorporating the chronological changes of the humans and environment based on the cognitive science method. The research scenario for this method is comprised of the following processes: first, the critical parameters that lead to the design of the product or service are reviewed to construct a hypothesis; the experiment is conducted in actual daily conditions that is controlled based on the critical parameters; then the adequacy of the hypothesis on the human behavior is verified from the analysis; and the function that should be realized in the product or service is proposed. 3 Development of the cognitive chrono-ethnography method3.1 Retrospective interviewIn the 1970s, the verbal protocol method was proposed for analyzing the cognitive process in the field of cognitive science[8]. This is a method where a person is asked to verbalize and express whatever comes to mind on site. As mentioned earlier, humans select their actions continuously based on the limited cues obtained in certain situations, even if the selection is not necessarily optimal for achieving the goal. However, when explaining one’s actions to another after the event, one gives explanations as if there is total rationality in the series of actions that are remembered in fragments, to make one’s actions meaningful. Therefore, the verbal expression of past events is considered to be unreliable. In the case of the verbal protocol method, the advantage is that the subject cannot reconstruct and offer rationalizing explanation since the verbalization is done in real time. This method is used often in the usability testing of information device, but the subject may be too focused on verbalizing whatever comes to mind at each action and this may interfere with the operation of the device. Although this may not be a problem when the device is operated in the laboratory, it is not readily applicable when studying the cognitive behavior in daily life.In the case where the verbalization of the cognitive content cannot be done in real time, the only method is to look back afterwards, but this cannot be done by relying solely on

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