" Without Thought" Philosophy of Design Applied to Product Design

Home , Philosophy of design

“Without Thought” Philosophy of Design Applied to Product Design

A thesis submitted to the Graduate School

College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning

of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Master of Design

in the School of Design

of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning

Peizhong Xu

July 25, 2013

B.E., College of Mechanical & Automotive Engineering,

South China University of Technology, P.R. China, 2010

Committee:

Peter Chamberlain, M.F.A., MPhil

Tony Kawanari, M.A., I.D. Abstract

“Designers often want to make something special, something that really grabs people’s attention. However I realized that when we actually use these products, whether or not they are special is not that important.” - This was said in the Dwell

Magazine Online interview of Naoto Fukasawa, one of the best-known Japanese industrial designers[1]. Due to this reason, he decided to develop a philosophy, named

“Without Thought” Philosophy of Design, which is a translation of the Japanese phrase

“意識なくしている行動”. “意識” (ishiki) means conscious and deliberate thought. “なく

している” (nakushiteiru) refers to getting rid of or “losing”. “行動”(koudou) has the meaning of the action or activity. Therefore, Fukasawa’s philosophy is one that attempts to remove conscious and deliberate thought from people’s everyday interactions with products – making a more direct and transparent interactive interface. This philosophy is about “finding ideas in people’s spontaneous behavior and realizing these ideas in design” [2]. Not having to think more about how to use a product could allow people to achieve their goals unconsciously, which makes the usage of a product easier and smoother. This philosophy can greatly improve the relationship between users and products. However, in order to apply the “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design to product design, the design process should be different from a traditional design process.

Therefore for this project, a methodology was developed specifically for such a design philosophy, based on a case study, so that the final model could help other designers to better understand the philosophy and use it in the future.

iii

Acknowledgements

I would like to express deep appreciation to my committee chair Professor Peter

Chamberlain. His guidance, help, and encouragement made this dissertation possible.

I would like to thank my committee member professor Tony Kawanari for guiding me with patience and encouragement.

In addition, a thank you to professor Mike Zender and professor Gerry Michaud, who helped me in the research process.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents and friends for their support.

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Acknowledgements ...... iv

Table of Contents ...... v

List of Figures ...... vi

Chapter 1 What is the “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design ...... 1

1.1 Relationship between a Person and an Object ...... 1

1.2 Achieve the Design Objective “Without Thought” ...... 2

Chapter 2 Achieve the “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design Goal ...... 5

2.1 Case Study ...... 5

2.2 Design Thinking of “Without Thought” ...... 8

Chapter 3 The WTPD Model ...... 16

3.1 Design Research ...... 18

3.2 Ideation ...... 20

3.3 Test ...... 26

Chapter 4 WTPD Model Evaluation ...... 28

4.1 Model Test ...... 29

4.2 Results Analysis ...... 29

Chapter 5 Conclusion ...... 34

References ...... 36

Image References ...... 38

Appendices ...... 40

List of Figures

Figure 1: Case Study ...... 7

Figure 2: Maracas Salt and Pepper Shaker ...... 8

Figure 3: Umbrella ...... 10

Figure 4: Printer ...... 10

Figure 5: CD Player ...... 11

Figure 6: Light with A Dish ...... 12

Figure 7: Rice Cooker ...... 13

Figure 8: Piano Doorbell ...... 13

Figure 9: Daylight Entrance ...... 14

Figure 10: Juice Package ...... 14

Figure 11: Potato Cellphone ...... 15

Figure 12: The WTPD Model ...... 17

Figure 13: Milk Carton on A Flat Surface ...... 22

Figure 14: The "Undo" advertisement ...... 24

Figure 15: Infobar 2 Cellphone ...... 26

Figure 16: Test Results of Yes/No/Not Sure Questions ...... 30

Figure 17: Test Results of Correct/Incorrect/Partial Correct Questions ...... 31

Chapter 1

What is the “Without Thought” Philosophy

of Design

1.1 Relationship between a Person and an Object

When a person first moved into the apartment, he was not quite sure about how to open the door. He inserted the key into the lock, and turned it clockwise, pushed the door, and nothing happened. He tried in the opposite direction. It was still locked. Then he turned the key clockwise again and turned the knob below, and the door was open.

Sometimes in the next few days, he still could not clearly remember the direction of turning the key to open the door. Sometimes he even left his keys in the door after entering the room, and other times he forgot to lock the door from inside.

Such a situation has also happened to many other people. 15 people of various backgrounds, professions, and age groups were interviewed as part of this research. In the interview, they were asked the question “Have you ever met with the situation in which you do not know how to use a product?” All of the people answered yes that they had encountered these situations. When they use some products for the first time, they need to take some time to think about how to use them. They also need to try several

times until they successfully achieve the objectives. They also have to remember the procedure step by step if the usage is complicated, so that they will not make any mistakes in using the product. The appearance of a product is an instruction that tells the users how to use it. A misunderstanding of the usage could lead to an inappropriate interaction that may cause serious damages to both the users and the product.

In order to attract consumers’ attention, some designers design products with an appealing appearance, but with no visual cues of how to use it. However when users start to use these products, they find it difficult to understand the way to use them, and it is too complicated for them to remember all the steps quickly. If so, such products just lose their value of improving people’s life. The goal of designing a product is to help people to live better, easier, and enjoyable lives. A new product that people could start using without thinking a lot about how to interact with it would greatly improve the using experience, and people could enjoy more of it.

1.2 Achieve the Design Objective “Without Thought”

“Finding ideas in people’s spontaneous behavior and realizing these ideas in design is what Without Thought is about.” Said notable Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa[3].

He developed the “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design in order to define a design method that could help to make the interaction between people and objects smoother and easier. He described “Without Thought” by saying: “When we walk and take steps

on the ground, we sense and choose the surface for each step. However, this is more about our unconscious response. It means that our brain may not be cognitively processing something, but parts of our body such as hands and legs recognize the environments and react to the situations or to things” [4]. In this philosophy, the crucial point is to find out people’s spontaneous behavior. Using such a behavior as an interaction between people and the object could make the action more quick and accurate.

As Naoto Fukasawa explained, unconsciousness is related to, but not equal to the

“Without Thought” philosophy. In psychology, “Freud divided the mind into the conscious mind (or the ego) and the unconscious mind... In this theory, the unconscious refers to the mental processes of which individuals make themselves unaware”[5].

Unconscious is not equal to without thinking, but a reaction made by parts of body based on our prior experience and knowledge stored. It does not take long for this

“unconsciousness” to surface. For example, the first time when someone sees a snake, he does not actually know what it is, or how dangerous it will be. After the snake bites him, he has had such a terrifying experience that he knows that snake is a dangerous animal that scares him. So next time, when the guy sees a snake approaching, he will jump, and run away without thinking twice - even if what he saw is just a thick rope.

Sometimes people do not even notice what they did, even when they just did it. The interaction was so smooth and seamless that they hardly recall it. This is a very natural way for people to interact with the products.

What Naoto Fukasawa wanted was to realize people’s spontaneous behaviors in design, in order to stimulate a natural unconscious interaction between people and objects. In this way, the appearance of a product will not be an instruction to tell people how to use it, but a trigger that causes people to do something. People may not know what will happen if they do that, but they just want to engage in the action when they see the product.

Some other designers have already embedded similar philosophies into their designs, but they are doing this in a more random and sporadic way.

Chapter 2

Achieve the “Without Thought” Philosophy

of Design Goal

2.1 Case Study

Along with his philosophy, Naoto Fukasawa created products that fit within people’s life unconsciously. Some of them have been bought and manufactured by several brands. Since other designers have created products employing philosophies similar to without thought design, numerous examples exist. A number of those examples have been collected to analyze the interactions between users and products, in order to find out the methods of integrating people’s spontaneous behavior into the design.

In this case study, the expected interaction for every design, and how the design facilitates interaction were analyzed.

Figure 1: Case Study

2.2 Design Thinking of “Without Thought”

Reviewing all the designs above, the appearances of these designs are potentially telling the users that they could do something, but they do not have to do something.

Like the Maracas Salt and Pepper Shaker (Figure 2), the first time people see them, they do not know what they are for, or what is inside. The only idea evoked in your mind would be that “they look like maracas, and I want to shake them”. After people do the action, the pepper and salt are spread on the plate. They did not actually notice what would happen when they shake them, but after they actually do that, the interaction successfully happens. This is how the “Without Thought” philosophy works.

Figure 2: Maracas Salt and Pepper Shaker, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for Plus Minus Zero (± 0) company

By analyzing the relationships between users and the product, there were two interaction methods found. In one of them, users’ actions to the product already existed, and the product was given a quality later to afford such actions. In the other one, products had a quality, which stimulated users to have such reactions, either physical or

emotional. In other words, the difference between the two conditions is whether users’ behavior exists first, or the quality of the product exists first. Therefore in the first condition, it could be said that an Action Affordance was created, which means that the design of the product created a quality to better afford user’s action. To help describe and understand the second condition, “Action Stimulation” and “Emotion Stimulation” were created. Action Stimulation means that the product can stimulate the user to do a new action. Emotion Stimulation refers to adding a quality to the product to evoke empathy in the user's mind.

These three newly defined states of interaction between people and products assists in understanding the goal and application of Without Thought design.

A. Action Affordance

When people use a product, they are used to performing a series of actions to accomplish the task. Sometimes they will do something without any purpose, or by a personal habit. Designers could use these behaviors, and provide an environment for them to fulfill such potential needs. “±0 Umbrella”(Figure 3) and “Epson Printer”(Figure 4) are two typical examples.

During rainy days, when people take an umbrella in hand with some groceries, they would like to hang the plastic bags on the handle of the umbrella, in order to reduce the heavy load in hand. Even though the handle is curved, and the bags could not be securely hung on, they will still try to hang the bags on the handle. Fukasawa designed the umbrella with an indentation on the top of the handle, just for users to hang the bags

if they need to do so. When people use this umbrella, they do not need to notice the indentation, but when they do the action, the environment is provided for them to do so.

Figure 3: Umbrella, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for Plus Minus Zero (± 0) company.

In the office, when people go to take the printed material and find it incorrect, the spontaneous idea will be to throw the waste into a trash bin. If there were not one near the printer, it would be not convenient. The feature of the Epson Printer is combining the printer with a trash bin. In order to solve the problem, one can just add an affordance to a traditional printer, to fulfill people’s spontaneous needs.

Figure 4: Printer, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for Epson sompany.

B. Action Stimulation

Another way that “Without Thought” design works is to take some features from another object that people are familiar with, and adding them into the products to evoke people’s desire of performing an action.

Take the MUJI CD Player as an example(Figure 5). It is designed like a kitchen fan attached on the wall. If no one tells you that it is a CD Player, you might not find out immediately. However it does not matter, because there is a string hanging down from the box and that just remind you of the kitchen fan you have used before. Then you want to pull the string, and once you do that, the player will be turned on successfully. In this case, the key point is using the string of the kitchen fan to remind users of the action, pulling the string.

Figure 5: CD Player, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for MUJI company.

In another case, we could also find a similar design method. The “Light with a Dish” is a light that could be placed next to the front door at home (Figure 6). When you open

the front door and enter the room, you have your keys in hand. You notice that there is a dish beside you, then you put your keys in the dish, and the light is automatically turned on, like saying “welcome home”. When you perform the action of putting the keys in the dish, you might not think about turning on the light, just because the dish reminds you of the action of putting something in it.

Figure 6: Light with A Dish, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for Plus Minus Zero (± 0) company.

In addition to these two cases, “Maracas Salt and Pepper Shaker”, “MUJI Rice

Cooker”(Figure 7) and “Piano Door Bell”(Figure 8) also use the same design method.

The relationship of the product shapes and overall interaction, and how they can be evaluated is discussed later in this thesis.

Figure 7: Rice Cooker, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for MUJI company.

Figure 8: Piano Doorbell, designed by Li JIanye

C. Emotion Stimulation

Sometimes designers use “Without Thought” not to stimulate a real interaction between people and products, but to deliver information to the users, to evoke their empathy.

The “Daylight Entrance”, an LED Light on the wall, looks like sunshine projected on the wall through a window (Figure 9). People in the room would feel like they are under the natural light, and in a natural environment. The “Juice Package” not only looks like, but also feels like real fruit (Figure 10). The simulated texture is delivering the

information that the juice inside is quite fresh. It also very clearly communicates what type of juice is inside. The “Potato Cellphone” is designed like a peeled potato(Figure

11). When people hold it, they might be reminded of a freshly peeled potato.

Figure 9: Daylight Entrance, designed by Daniel Rybakken.

Figure 10: Juice Package, designed by Naoto Fukasawa.

Figure 11: Potato Cellphone, designed by Naoto Fukasawa.

There are not physical interactions between the users and these products, but people are emotionally interacting with the products when they see them.

Chapter 3

The WTPD Model

There are four main phases in the process of designing a product by using

“Without Thought” Philosophy of design method: Define Design Goal, Design Thinking,

Behavior Observation and Test.

A WTPD (“Without Thought” Philosophy of Design) Model, which includes these four main phases to show the methodology of “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design, was created (Figure 12).

Figure 12: The WTPD Model

3.1 Design Research

Before seriously starting ideation, designers must engage in research. Like the research in other design processes, clearly defining the design goal would be a good start. The goal includes the object that will be designed, the target users whom will be designed for, the environment/situation, which the object will be used in, and the most important thing – the problems to be solved, or the expectation to be reached.

For instance, we could consider the design topic of “designing a door knob to guarantee home security”. Designers are going to design a Door Knob– the object, for

All The People – the target users, to use At Home – the environment, in order to

Guarantee Home Security – the expectation. Some of those concepts may be too general and abstract, such as “how to guarantee home security”. So what designers need to do next is to make the expectation clearer by specifying the problems, like “the door knobs existing are complicated to use”, “people will forget to lock them sometimes”, or “people do not know if they are locked or not”. Designers could get the information by analyzing the products in the market, by interviewing some users to know their requirements, by using-case analysis, etc.

Till now, the research looks quite similar with others in those traditional design processes. For “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design, however, there is one more step that is crucial for achieving excellence in design – Behavior Observation, via which the designers could discover people’s spontaneous behaviors to the product in such

environments, or in some similar situations, to draw out the potential response people have to the signs around them.

To understand why “Behavior Observation” is an important step in the design research, it is necessary to review the definition of “Without Thought” Philosophy of

Design – “Finding ideas in people’s spontaneous behavior and realizing these ideas in design” [6]. In this philosophy, “people’s spontaneous behavior” is a key element. This is an essential inspiration for designers to get ideas of how to design. It is different from other design philosophies. For example, in a design process, which employs Product

Semantics, designers are expressing their ideas and instructing the users by using the curves and forms that people are familiar with. That is like two people talking in a special language that both of them understand. However for “Without Thought”

Philosophy of Design, designers are not talking with the users. What they strive to do is to develop the signs that could stimulate people’s actions and emotions, to remind them of situations, in which they would do something without any thought or comprehension.

To achieve this goal, therefore, requires designers to start from the study of people’s behaviors.

“Behavior is the range of actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with their environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment. It is the response of the system or organism to various stimuli or inputs, whether internal or external, conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, and voluntary or involuntary.” [7] In “Without

Thought” Philosophy of Design, the behaviors we need to focus on are spontaneous,

subconscious, and involuntary. Thus, the term “Without Thought” would be redefined here as “It is the response of our body system or emotional system to various stimuli, and it could be internal or external, but should be subconscious and involuntary.” During the observation of behaviors, designers need to focus on those subconscious actions and emotions people have, take notes about the stimuli that cause such behaviors, and also the situation and the environment that those behaviors happen in.

After ensuring the goal of design, designers can observe human behaviors with the purpose of looking for the different situations in which people use the product, and record the whole using experience, even those minor actions that seem to not relate to the main function of the product. They can look for the stimuli that will cause people to do the actions similar to what they do to the products. They can also research the other elements that could evoke people’s emotion and specific feelings, such as the culture related to the usage of the product in the area.

3.2 Ideation

As mentioned in Chapter 2, three methods of design thinking in “Without Thought”

Philosophy of Design were created: Action Affordance, Action Stimulation, and Emotion

Stimulation. These methods could be used for different cases and purposes.

If designers were going to improve the whole using experience of the product, the first method – Action Affordance – would be a good choice. This method is to find out people’s behaviors, both related and unrelated to the main function of the product, especially those behaviors which the objects do not support and achieve them in the design, by adding some additional function onto the product. Designers could observe people’s behaviors with such a product in some specific situations, and record every minor action that people would do to the object.

For example, imagine that someone stands with one hand full of grocery bags, the other one holding a milk carton, and the phone starting to ring, what would he do? We would see that he put the milk carton down on the flat surface of a railing to free up a hand, even if the surface of the railing was not a perfect place to do so (Figure 13). This behavior should be familiar to most people. It happens in most the situations. Many railings do not have a flat surface, but existing railings never fulfill such potential requirements. This is not what railings are mainly used for, but it is quite common in the using experience. Therefore, adding this kind of affordance onto the railing would definitely improve the potential using experience.

Figure 13: Milk Carton on A Flat Surface, photographed by Naoto Fukasawa.

However if the designing were focused on how the product could be more easily used, the second method – Action Stimulation would be recommended. When people are faced with a product for the first time, they have such questions as “how to use it”.

Most of the time, this problem causes a kind of anxiety or inhibition for the users, so that some users reject using something different from what they are used to. What if designers could design a new object, which could remind users of something else that they are quite familiar with, even stop thinking about that annoying question, but just do something without any thought? Imagine something like the object in Figure 8, attached on the wall with part of a “piano keyboard”. You would just play it as you would do to the real piano and then comes the music, and then you discover it is actually a doorbell.

Even if you had already known that it was a doorbell, you would just ignore finding where the button is, and instead curiously press the keyboard to see what would happen after that. In fact, it does not matter if the user knows what the object is or not. If

there are some obvious features that will attract their attention and easily remind them of something familiar, to which they are used to performing such actions, the users will just do it. This is how Action Stimulation could simplify the usage of a product.

Designers could define the actions that users need to perform to the target object first, and do some research to find out the features of some other products, to which users would always do similar actions. They would then apply those features to the target object in design. In this way, the usage of the new product could be much simpler and smoother.

If what designers would like to deliver via the designs were a kind of emotional feeling, which means they hope to get internal responses from the users, the third method – Emotion Stimulation – would be helpful. This method is used to evoke people’s empathy to visual features of the target object. It mostly works well in Visual

Design, like package, branding, poster, etc. SAATCHI&SAATCHI DUBAI’s “Undo” design is a good example (Figure 14). Usually, when people see the “Ctrl + Z”, they associate it with the action “undo”. In this example, the designer just took advantage of this, to apply the “Ctrl + Z” onto the package of OLAY wrinkle smoothing cream, so as to let people have the feeling that this product can “undo” the age and smooth away wrinkles. This makes the product standout in markets and be attractive to most of the audiences. However, for functional design, this method is also applicable. Designers can add a quality onto a product, which stimulates users to generate an idea, and this idea would cause them to do some actions to the product.

Figure 14: The "Undo" advertisement, designed by SAATCHI&SAATCHI DUBAI for OLAY.

There are four recommended main form design methods to help designers to realize their brief idea into a detailed concept design. They are Affordance, Culture,

Metaphor, and Analogy.

James J. Gibson intended an affordance to mean "an action possibility available in the environment to an individual, independent of the individual's ability to perceive this possibility" ... [An example being] “a door can have the affordance of 'openability' (its affordance relative to the actor) but can be hidden, camouflaged or likewise” [8].

For example, a flat surface has the affordance of “putting something on it”. If designers make the lid a flat surface, like the Muji Rice Cooker, the lid can become a place for putting things. People would put something on that surface without any purpose.

Culture has evolved for many years, which is of great value to humans. So culture has a big effect on human’s behaviors, and it represents emotional experiences.

Fukasawa talked about peeling potatoes as a child. After he finished peeling, he would find that the surface of the potato had many clear cutting edges. In his neighborhood or

even his country, potatoes are a main food staple. So in Fukasawa’s childhood, he had this experience, which had a deep impression on him and residents from his neighborhood, even his country. When they hold this “Potato Cellphone” which is designed like a peeled potato, it will evoke a sense of nostalgia. (Figure 11).

Metaphor and Analogy are two terms with similar meaning. “A metaphor is a figure of speech that uses one thing to mean another and makes a comparison between the two. The key words here are ‘one thing to mean another.’ ...[An example being] ‘He’s become a shell of a man’... An analogy is comparable to metaphor ... Rather than a figure of speech, an analogy is more of a logical argument. The presenter of an analogy will often demonstrate how two things are alike by pointing out shared characteristics, with the goal of showing that if two things are similar in some ways, they are similar in other ways as well.” [9]

Take the “Infobar 2” cellphone as an example (Figure 15). Candy can bring people fun and happiness, so the designers used a metaphor to make a comparison between a cellphone and a candy bar that lets people feel like having the experience of enjoying a candy bar when they use the cellphone.

Figure 15: Infobar 2 Cellphone, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for KDDI Corporation.

3.3 Test

In the “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design method, after making prototypes, a test is needed. Designers need to think about what they try to get from the test, and if they want to apply the philosophy from “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design. The designers then have to think about the context and testing scenario if they want to get useful feedback.

Testing in the similar context in which your solution would actually be used could greatly simulate users' usual experience. Asking the interviewees to accomplish a general task, rather than being very specific, could truly bring them into a realistic situation so that some spontaneous actions and nuanced issues could occur. For example, if you are creating a rice cooker for home usage, let users test it in the kitchen of an apartment, and just tell them to pretend that they are cooking rice. Do not

obviously or purposely mention anything related to such as “turn on the ‘cook’ button”, etc.

Chapter 4

WTPD Model Evaluation

In order to find out if the WTPD (Without Thought Philosophy of Design) Model could help designers better understand the “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design and use this model in the future, a test was set up that could be helpful for evaluating if the

WTPD Model is effective and efficient for designers and to know about its advantages or shortcomings..

There are three aspects in the evaluation of the WTPD Model. The first is to see if designers have a better understanding of the “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design after viewing the WTPD Model. The second is to know if they could easily and intuitively understand the process and the core of the WTPD Model. The last part is to know if designers consider the WTPD Model to be valuable, and if they are willing to use this model as a reference when they meet the suitable condition.

For getting the effective feedback about the WTPD Model, 26 Industrial design students and designers were invited to take part in the research survey. They all have an Industrial design background and they are familiar with the process of product design, which makes their feedback relevant and valuable.

4.1 Model Test

During the test, the WTPD Model was shown to the designers first. The whole process and the definition of three terms: Action Affordance, Action Stimulation, and

Emotion Stimulation, created in this thesis were explained before asking questions to establish a brief understanding of the main phases of the WTPD Model.

Some interviewees were intercepted in the hallway and some interviewees were found through the Internet to take this survey. The WTPD Model was presented to them with a piece of paper or an electronic document. The examples of “Without Thought” products were shown to them as part of the explanation. A questionnaire was shown to them as well (Appendices). During the brief explanation, words like “the most important step” were avoided.

4.2 Results Analysis

The “Yes/No/Not sure questions” test result (Figure 16) and the

“Correct/Incorrect/Partial Correct questions” test result (Figure 17) are listed below:

Figure 16: Test Results of Yes/No/Not Sure Questions

Figure 17: Test Results of Correct/Incorrect/Partial Correct Questions

The results from this survey provided a positive demonstration that the WTPD

Model is valuable. Most of the interviewees considered that the WTPD Model could help

designers better understand the “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design, and they were

willing to use it as their design process for user-centered design.

From the “Yes/No/Not sure questions” part of the survey, we can find that most

interviewees did not know what “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design was before the

survey. However, after viewing a brief introduction and the model, interviewees got a

better understanding of the model. They could clearly understand the difference

between the three methods of design thinking and catch the key points of them.

When asked 'what is the most important part of the methodology', some of the interviewees said 'behavior observation', and some of them mentioned 'design thinking'.

Actually the perfect answer to this question is 'behavior observation and design thinking'.

These two parts interplay with each other. The design thinking provides guidelines for designers to start designing from the users' situation, and Behavior Observation is the way of figuring out the inspiration for the ideations. Most of people think that one of these two is more important than the other one, so they just point out one of them, but they still notice the close relation between these two aspects. In a word, this model clearly describes the methods of the whole process of 'Without Thought' Philosophy of

Design, and clearly points out the relationship between them. This model has received favorable overall comments from the interviewees.

For this thesis, the WTPD Model was evaluated to understand whether designers

have a better understanding of the “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design and the

WTPD Model and if they consider the WTPD Model to be valuable. As a means of further evaluating the WTPD Model, designers actually use the methodology to create a product - this is the proposed next phase of this research. In the future, the WTPD

Model can be further refined to help designers record the behaviors they observe and discover in daily life, and apply it to designed products. In addition to the resulting improved model being applied to product design, it could be communicated in future papers and presentations.

Chapter 5

Conclusion

People are often apprehensive when they use a product for the first time.

Reducing the difficulty of product usage is critical to product design. A good product design can allow the using process to be smooth and enjoyable. The "Without Thought"

Philosophy of Design provides a new perception for Industrial designers to think about the relationship between products and users. It can help designers to create an intuitive using experience.

In this thesis, a methodology of the philosophy was set up based on case studies, so as to help designers to comprehend what "Without Thought" means, and how to apply this philosophy to product design. The most important phases in applying this philosophy are design thinking and behavior observation. After traditional design research, design thinking can lead designers to properly seek solutions. It contains three directions: Action Affordance - adding a quality to the product to afford the observable behavior of the user during the using experience; Action Stimulation - adding a quality to the product to stimulate the user to make a proper action; and Emotion

Stimulation - adding a quality to the product to evoke empathy in the user's mind. There are three kinds of behavior observation targets according to the three design thinking methods: observable behavior in the using experience, similar actions to other features,

and empathetic connection between people and objects. If design thinking is a guideline of ideation, then behavior observation is a supportive step in the design process.

The WTPD model is visualization of the methodology of "Without Thought"

Philosophy of Design. Through this model, designers can visually understand “Without

Thought” Philosophy of Design and use the methodology in design step by step. This model has been tested by 26 Industrial Designers, and received positive responses that prove that it is clear and easy to understand, and effective in leading designers in the design process.

References

1. Naoto Fukasawa (09, 2006). Naoto Fukasawa: Without a Thought. Design Dwell

magazine. Retrieved from

http://www.dwell.com/peopleplaces/profiles/3920931.html

2. Naoto Fukasawa (09, 2006). Naoto Fukasawa: Without a Thought. Design Dwell

magazine. Retrieved from

http://www.dwell.com/peopleplaces/profiles/3920931.html

3. Naoto Fukasawa (09, 2006). Naoto Fukasawa: Without a Thought. Design Dwell

magazine. Retrieved from

http://www.dwell.com/peopleplaces/profiles/3920931.html

4. Naoto Fukasawa (n.d.). Ideal House | Modern design product - Fire collection.

Kmpfurniture. Retrieved from

http://www.kmpfurniture.com/designer-news/naoto-fukasawa_-the-perfect-

fit__85.html

5. Geraskov, Emil Asenov (November 1, 1994). The internal contradiction and the

unconscious sources of activity. Journal of Psychology.

6. Naoto Fukasawa (09, 2006). Naoto Fukasawa: Without a Thought. Design Dwell

magazine. Retrieved from

http://www.dwell.com/peopleplaces/profiles/3920931.html

7. “Behavior”, (2013). en.wikipedia.org.2013. Retrieved from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior

8. Soegaard, Mads (2003). Affordances. Retrieved 02 July 2013.

http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/affordances.html

9. Brian Clark (2007). Metaphor, Simile and Analogy: What’s the Difference?

Retrieved from

http://www.copyblogger.com/metaphor-simile-and-analogy-what’s-the-difference/

Image References

Figure 2: Maracas Salt and Pepper Shaker, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for Plus

Minus Zero (± 0) company.

http://moddea.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/maracas-salt-and-pepper-

shakers.jpg?w=584&h=389

Figure 3: Umbrella, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for Plus Minus Zero (± 0) company.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SReRFsMriBw/TM-

h2yZ6aLI/AAAAAAAAAPE/tl9DuCyqgXc/s400/umbrella_handle.jpg

Figure 4: Printer, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for Epson company.

http://www.hi-id.com/atcl/0702/Printer_naoto_fukasawa.jpg

Figure 5: CD player, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for MUJI company.

http://designyoutrust.com/wp-content/uploads5/mujicdplayer.jpg

Figure 6: Light with a Dish, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for Plus Minus Zero (± 0)

company.

http://www.sfgate.com/homeandgarden/article/Zahid-Sardar-Design-

Spotting-World-Design-2535579.php#photo-2663752

Figure 7: Rice Cooker, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for MUJI company.

http://www.uimaker.com/uploads/allimg/120329/1_120329091625_3.jpg

Figure 8: Piano Doorbell, designed by Li Jianye.

http://s245.photobucket.com/user/witchyhoy3/media/0a1bcvvvv/door-

bell1.jpg.html

Figure 9: Daylight Entrance, designed by Daniel Rybakken.

http://www.danielrybakken.com/daylight_entrance,_stockholm.html

Figure 10: Juice Package, designed by Naoto Fukasawa.

http://www.ohgizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/juice_boxes.jpg

Figure 11: Potato cellphone, designed by Naoto Fukasawa.

http://www.thememagazine.com/uploads/images/stories/naoto_fukasawa/full

_01.jpg

Figure 13: Figure Milk Carton, Milk Carton on A Flat Surface, photographed by Naoto

Fukasawa

http://www.hi-id.com/atcl/0702/milk_carton.jpg

Figure 14: The “Undo” print advertisement, designed by SAATCHI&SAATCHI DUBAI

for OLAY.

http://files.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_763/7637655/file/olay-wrinkle-

smoothing-cream-undo-small-16505.jpg

Figure 15: Infobar 2 Cellphone, designed by Naoto Fukasawa for KDDI Corporation.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/10/kddi-infobar-2-

2.jpg

Appendices

The WTPD Model Test

Introduction

The goal of this survey is to evaluate the WTPD Model, which helps designers visually understand “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design and use the methodology in design step by step.

The whole process and the definition of three terms: Action Affordance, Action

Stimulation, and Emotion Stimulation, created in this thesis will be explained before the questions are asked.

The WTPD Model will be presented to you. The examples of “Without Thought” products will be shown to you as part of the explanation. A questionnaire needs to be filled after that.

The questions are listed as below:

Yes/No/Not sure questions:

1. Did you know what “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design is before?

-Yes

-No

-Not sure

2. Do you know what “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design is now after viewing

a brief introduction and the model?

-Yes

-No

-Not sure

3. Do you know what “Without Thought” Philosophy of Design Method is after

viewing a brief introduction and the model?

-Yes

-No

-Not sure

4. Do you think each step in the model is clear?

-Yes

-No

-Not sure

5. Do you think this model is valuable?

-Yes

-No

-Not sure

Correct/Incorrect/Partial Correct questions:

1. After viewing the model, which step(s) is/are the most important in this “Without

Thought” Philosophy of Design Model?

2. What is the difference between “Action Affordance” and “Action Stimulation”?

3. What is the difference between “Action Stimulation” and “Emotion Stimulation”?

4. What is the main difference between this model and other traditional design

process in the test step?