Keynotes

 

Day 1 - March 2nd Day 2 - March 3rd Day 3 - March 4th
Akira Harada Kees Overbeeke Simon Schutte Lola Canamero

Nadia Berthouze
Kuohsiang Chen Carole FAVART

Daniel ESQUIVEL ELIZONDO
Prof. Akira
HARADA
Prof. Kees
OVERBEEKE
Dr. Simon
SCHUTTE
Prof. Lola
CANAMERO

and
Dr. Nadia
BERTHOUZE
Prof. Kuohsiang
CHEN
TOYOTA EUROPE
Carole FAVART
and
Daniel ESQUIVEL

 

 

 

Akira Harada

Prof. Akira Harada

President, Sapporo City University, JAPAN

He worked as a product planner at the GK Industrial Design Associate until 1978. He moved to the Faculty of Institute of Art and Design of the University of Tsukuba. (1978-2005) He studied cognitive science at the Illinois Institute of technology in USA. He began to research on the interface design (1985-1986). After that, he started to study the theory of interaction and function of Kansei. He was a board member to establish the Japan Society of Kansei Engineering (JSKE) 1999. He gave a lecture “KANSEI evaluation through network and log analysis” at the 1st International conference on Design and Emotion, TU Delft, 1999. He established the Doctoral major course in the graduate school of comprehensive human sciences of the University of Tsukuba with such as Brain Sciences, Cognitive Sciences, Disability Sciences, and Kansei Information Sciences in 2001. He was a former chair of Japanese Society for the Science of Design (JSSD), and a former chair of Japan Society of Kansei Engineering (JSKE).

Abstract

In order to grasp the function of Kansei, it is important to describe the function of Kansei and to build the model. Since Kansei is very comprehensive function, not vertical type research organization as before but trans-disciplinary approach is required for it. For a new product creation, the information by the Kansei-action which man is performing, and Kansei information data is utilized, and we are researching the interactive product development. We succeeded Kansei information measurement technical development and Kansei Interaction technical development using brain wave technology. In the University of Tsukuba doctoral program, Neuroscience, Psychology, Disability Science, and Science of Arts were integrated. This educational program of Trans-disciplinary approach aims to solve various compound subjects in society and industry. The complicated technical solution in man/woman, nature, society, environment, and industry can be discovered. It is because the function of man's Kansei was not considered to have played the important role by these complicated problems until now. Since many cases of these Kansei-processes were not intentional action but unconscious actions, it was not set as the scientific field. However, such unconscious action is just the trigger that makes man's final intention decisive. According to some "service design" examples, I would like to introduce that research of Kansei engineering and feeling carries out a big contribution to our social systems.


 

 

 

 

Kees Overbeeke

Prof. Kees OVERBEEKE

Eindhoven University of Technology, THE NETHERLANDS

Kees Overbeeke studied psychology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (Ma 1974). After working there, he moved to the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, where he gained his PhD (1988) on spatial perception on flat screens. He headed the group of Form Theory as Associate Professor until his move to the Department of Industrial Design of the TU/e in 2002. During the 2005-2006 academic year he was Distinguished Nierenberg Chair at Design CMU Pittsburgh, USA. In 2006 he was appointed full professor at TU/e. He now heads the Designing Quality in Interaction group (DQI). DQI consists of seven PhD-ed designers, and is one of the leading design research groups in the world. He strongly believes that design research should be theory driven, and that collaboration with industry is paramount (among others, collaboration with Philips, BMW, Unilever, Nissan, Adidas, and Microsoft).
Kees Overbeeke initiated several new subjects in design research: design and emotion, funology, aesthetics of interaction, rich interaction and design and ethics. He published extensively on these subjects in journals, books and conference papers. He initiated the “Design and Emotion” and the “Designing for Pleasurable Products and Interfaces DPPI”conferences. He was keynote speaker, and member of the scientific committee, of several international conferences, and has been plenary speaker at CHI 2009 in Boston, USA.
He is also editor and member of the editorial board of several leading international design journals.

Abstract

The last 25 years I was part of parallel developments in Japan and the western world. As Japan developed Kansei, the West re-discovered emotion, specifically in interaction design research. Several people of our group visited Tsukuba, myself included. In the mean time a first PhD project on the role of emotion in design was finished. As all of our work, it focuses on action as the typical human way of opening up meaning. Therefore, designed artefacts serve as “physical hypothesis”. Research through design is our method. Emotion in interaction design quite naturally moves towards aesthetics of interaction. Again we contacted Tsukuba, and did a workshop with their and our students working together. Aesthetics was opened up through music. Recently we included “ethics” into our teaching and research: the good and the beautiful touch. My talk is illustrated with a myriad of filmclips showcasing our work.
I conclude by stating that design is essentially a discipline that operates on a phenomenological level. Opening up the poetic dimension at people's experience level is therefore a must in design research.


 

 

 

 

Simon Schutte

Dr. Simon SCHÜTTE

Linköping University, SWEDEN

Simon Schütte studied mechanical engineering at Braunschweig University in Germany. After a period working for Volvo AB, he returned to the academy and is now an assistant professor at Linköping university in the area of machine design and product development. He has been working with Kansei Engineering methodology since 2000 and presented is PhD thesis in 2005 on the topic. It was the first PhD thesis work published on Kansei Engineering methodology in English language. In the meantime he has published a number of publications among them a book, several book chapters and journal papers; most of them describe product development projects using Kansei Engineering as main method. Simon Schütte has also been involved as a consultant in European industrial companies developing Kansei products.

Abstract

Affective Design and Kansei Engineering in particular is a relatively new field of research in the West. Linköping University in Sweden has been pioneering research and application in Europe since 1999. A close cooperation to Japanese researchers and companies was prudent to overcome initial difficulties. In early European studies, severe difficulties were obtained in the attempts to apply the original Japanese methodology. Reasons for this were manifold and complex. One cause was certainly the shortage of competence on affective design in European companies, but also the fact that incitements for improvement of product design seemed to be lacking. Moreover, the Japanese data collection systems were in many test cases not yielding valid results. Among other problems the traditional 5-point semantic differential questionnaires, one of the heart pieces of Japanese Kansei Engineering and works perfectly in Japan, created severe problems. In consequence, the researchers started to improve and validate the methodology and adapt it to a European context before being able to carry out “real” studies. A new “European” rating scale was developed and validated. Also new methods for data reduction were introduced in order to reduce data collection time for the individuals and in this way improve data quality. As a reaction on the companies lacking competence of the new area a software was developed collecting and evaluation data using QT1 and Rough sets algorithms. Since then Kansei Engineering group at Linköping University has been cooperating with several companies e.g. Electrolux Volvo, Saab, Scania, Toyota/BT. This presentation will also give examples on Kansei products developed in Europe.


 

 

 

 

Lola Canamero

Nadia Berthouze

Prof. Lola Canamero, University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom

and

Dr. Nadia Berthouze, University College London, UCLIC, United Kingdom

Lola Cañamero is Reader in Adaptive Systems in the School of Computer Science at University of Hertfordshire, which she joined in 2001. She received a BA and MA in Philosophy from the Complutense University of Madrid, and a PhD in Computer Science (1995) from the University of Paris-XI. She worked as a post-doc with Rodney Brooks at the MIT AI-Lab and with Luc Steels at the VUB AI-Lab. Her research revolves around emotion modeling for autonomous and social robots and agents, which she approaches from multiple perspectives, including developmental, evolutionary, functional/adaptational, and social. Among other relevant publications, she has edited the book Animating Expressive Characters for Social Interaction (John Benjamins, 2008) and the special issue of the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics “Achieving Human-Like Qualities in Interactive Virtual and Physical Humanoids” (2006). She currently coordinates the EU-funded multidisciplinary project FEELIX GROWING (www.feelix-growing.org) on socially situated emotional development.

Since 2006, Nadia Berthouze is a lecturer the University College London. After her PhD in Computer Science at the University of Milan (Italy), she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Electrotechnical Laboratory (Japan) where she worked in the area of Multimedia information with a focus on the interpretation of affective content. In 2000, she was appointed as lecturer at the University of Aizu in Japan where she extended her interest to the study of non-verbal affective communication. The premise of her research is that affect and subjective experience should be factored into the design of interactive technology. At the centre of her research is the creation of interactive systems that exploit body movement as a medium to induce, recognize and measure the quality of experience of humans. She is investigating the various factors involved in the way body movement is used to express and experience emotions, including cross-cultural differences.

Abstract

The design of affective technology that can effectively interact with and support humans requires multidisplinary research efforts addressing multiple aspects of emotion modelling, behavior and expression, and Human-Machine / Human-Robot Interaction. In this talk we provide an overview of some of these aspects, covering both how to model emotional systems that can interact naturally with humans (part I), and how to exploit the way humans interact naturally in order to build such technology (part II).

Part I (Lola Cañamero): Emotional Robots: Affective Companions or Scientific Tools? “Affective” and “social” robots that can display and recognize simple forms of emotions are becoming increasingly popular. Besides their entertainment potential, they can be useful tools to support us cognitively and emotionally in our everyday activities. Although research in this direction is witnessing important advances, a big challenge that researchers in affective robotics still face is the design of robots that humans are willing to accept and trust. This involves achieving natural interactions that are socially and emotionally adapted, believable and engaging to the human. In this talk I will illustrate various aspects of my research on modeling emotional systems, interaction and expression in robots towards this goal, and which also help scientists understand the nature, functions, origins, development, and adaptive value of emotions.

Part II (Nadia Berthouze): Body movement in affective HCI (HMI). With technology becoming ubiquitous, it becomes increasingly important for human-machine interaction to exploit the various communication channels available to humans. Body movement is one modality with the potential to enable a more natural form of interaction and facilitate access to technology to a broader population to access technology. Although body movement has been garnering increasing interest in recent years, it has been mainly used as a way to control the technology with little attention to how technology can exploit body movement to enhance emotional and engagement experience as well as to support cognitive processes. In this talk, I will discuss this unique potential by discussing a number of studies from various disciplines, including HCI. I will conclude by identifying a set of questions that these studies raise to designers of affective technologies.


 

 

 

 

Kuohsiang Chen

Prof. Kuohsiang CHEN

National Cheng Kung University, TAIWAN

Kuohsiang Chen, with Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from the Institute of Design, IIT, and serving as section editor for the Journal of Design, is Professor of Industrial Design at National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. Dr. Chen has conducted a cross-university research project on Integrated Multi-sensory Kansei Engineering for Product Development (2002-2006), and has been the Deputy Director for the Educational Resources Center for Life Trendy Goods Design (2004-2007) at NCKU. His professional experiences include: Product Designer for SINO Design & Development and the SAMPO Company; Diagrams Researcher & Programmer for SPSS Inc.; and Design Specialist for the China External Trade Development Council, the China Productivity Center and the Council of Labor Affairs. His principal areas of research interests cover: form generation and style association, Kansei Engineering, and interaction design. Dr. Chen has publications in areas of form and style languages, computer-supported formal design, influential factors in interface design, and Kansei Engineering. He is now a guest researcher at TU Delft, Netherland, after a short visiting at Tsukuba University, Japan.

Abstract

After accepting the enthusiastic encouragements from the researchers around the world at the KEER 2007 in Sapporo, Japan, and with tremendous efforts of my colleagues and students at NCKU, Taiwan Institute of Kansei (TIK) was formed on the 13th of December, 2008. But, long before that, the first master thesis on Kansei Engineering “A Concise Procedure for Executing Kansei Engineering” was completed at National Chiao Tung University in 1996. A special interest group on Kansei Engineering was established at NCKU in 1999, followed by the first special section on Kansei Engineering in the Technology and Teaching Conference organized by Ming Chi University of Technology in 2000. The first journal paper on Kansei Engineering “A Study on the Color and Style Collocation of Mobile Phones Using Neural Network Method” was published on Journal of the Chinese Institute of Industrial Engineers in 2001. And the first PhD Dissertation “The Evaluation Bases and Design Optimization for Product Form Attractiveness” was completed at National Cheng Kung University in 2004.
With these milestones as background, this presentation will first address the forming process of TIK in detail, followed by offering some overall statistical figures of Kansei research in Taiwan, and finished by brief descriptions of the two integrated researches “An Integrated Research on the Application of Compound Kansei Engineering on Product Development, 2002-6” and “Integrated Research of Emotion-based Product Development, 2007-9”.
Before ending the presentation, the speaker would like to announce a welcome message to the audiences for the KEER 2012 to be held in TAIWAN.


 

 

 

 

Carole FAVART

Daniel ESQUIVEL ELIZONDO

TOYOTA EUROPE

Carole FAVART and Daniel ESQUIVEL ELIZONDO

Carole FAVART is since 2003 General Manager of European Projects 2, a design department in Research & Development. Her first education is in Interior and Product Design.
She set up a Design Company in 1990, in which 3 departments were created: Transportation (aircrafts and boats), Graphic Design (and management of Brand Identity) and Design Strategy.
At the end of 1999, she joined RENAULT where she set up a new Design Direction, and was responsible for Colour, Materials and Graphic Design, including navigation systems and Brand identity, such as Formula 1.
Toyota Europe newly created a new cross-functional Division based on multi-expertises, with R&D, Marketing and Style Members. Strongly convinced that leading edge technologies, and long-term product strategies have to combine with the design to strengthen the innovation capacity and the brands’ DNA, She also works for Lexus brand in order to express European expectations to TMC (Toyota Motors Corporation) Japan.

From Mexico, as Industrial Engineer, Daniel ESQUIVEL ELIZONDO came to France in 2004 to follow the 2-year Master in Research at the LCPI. There he discovered the exciting fields of innovation and design that had the opportunity to put into practice during his final research project at Toyota in Belgium, with the mission “create of a tool to measure the Kansei of car interiors”.
Since then, hired by Toyota in 2006, he has contributed to new model concept definition by defining the key items to improve the interior Kansei. Together with the Kansei Group, he is currently working on a user-experience based approach including multi-sensory stimuli and contextual scenarios.

Abstract

Choosing your car depends on a mix of both logical and emotional reasons mutually influencing each other. Owning it, driving it, showing it to your friends, all this can play a big role in the final impression of the user experience. In Toyota, the Kansei Group leads a cross functional activity to create the future experiences in mobility.  As a pluri-disciplinary team, we explore innovative synergies between different competencies creating potential solutions on customer needs from technological innovations. In order to understand the customer’s viewpoint, we conduct research on objective and subjective criteria while taking into account the most pertinent scenarios of usage. Our approach, based in Kansei Engineering principles, is enriched by other methodologies as Engineering Emotions, Experience Design, Interaction Design and Sensory Evaluation.  In the current automotive context, it is not enough just to define the current customer needs, but to better anticipate what will be his needs at the launch time of the vehicle and throughout the vehicle’s lifetime. To do so,  we conducted extensive research on innovative materials outside the automotive sector. As customers’ real needs are difficult to be grasped from the subconscious level, we have developed an internal tool allowing us to define the customers’ key focus areas based on his holistic perception. To proceed,  we use multivariate analysis techniques that we confirm with conscious-based technics like focus groups and interviews. Further, we have developed a multi-sensory experience frame in order to explore interactions and overlaps between the perception and the interpretation of the stimuli. This frame works as well as a platform for cross-collaboration and communication between different teams.