A method for improving usability based on the knowledge on high-performance touch panels

Recently, the use of products with high-performance touch panels, such as smartphones, has spread rapidly. As a result, many people routinely use products containing touch panels and users' quality expectations for touch panels are increasing. In contrast, some products like printers still use low-performance touch panels because of cost restrictions. Since users' quality expectations for touch panels are increasing, it will be necessary for companies that manufacture products using low-performance touch panels to improve usability. In order to improve the usability products equipped with touch panels, companies must accurately understand the users' increasing quality expectations. This study analyzed users' increasing quality expectations for touch panels by performing a Kansei evaluation for several smartphones. Moreover, this study proposes a method for developing product design guidelines to improve touch panel usability based on the aforementioned expectations. Furthermore, guidelines for improving the usability of printer touch panels were clarified by applying the proposed method. Subsequently, we applied the aforementioned guidelines to the touch panel of a printer and confirmed that the usability of the target printer's touch panel was indeed improved. The proposed method enables an understanding of users' increasing expectations without being biased to the performance of current products. It is possible to improve the usability of touch panels effectively by applying the proposed method.