Ergonomic design of a portable musical instrument

1
Ergonomic design of a portable musical instrument

• NIME 2003 Montreal, Canada
• Motohide Hatanaka
• Center for Design Research
• Stanford University
• California, USA

2
Dont you want one?

• No time to play instruments?
• Dont you have time
• during commute?
• on a long plane ride?

A Walkman that you play!
3
Two messages!
Lets develop a Walkman that you play.
Electronic instruments can create a new market.

• Design by co-satisfaction of
• task (demand),
• technology, and
• human ergonomics.

4
Desirable properties for playing in public

• For the user
• Compact light
• Comfortable
• Fun
• For the neighbors
• Quiet
• Small range of motion

5
Benchmarking competitions
Handheld video games
Mobile phone
http//www.gameboy.com/sp/home.jsp
http//www.au.kddi.com/seihin/kinobetsu/seihin/a53
05k/index.html
6
Initial conceptwith intuition

• Round shapes are ergonomic
• ? Spherical
• Sensors on surface
• (e.g. buttons, touchpad)
• Use wrist to twist
• Compress inwards with palms

7
Testing shapes with mockups
8
Choosing pivot location
9
Choosing sensor location
Finger exercise
10
Matching human input, function, and hardware
11
Hardware with acrylic sandwich structure
12
Hardware setup
13
System setup
14
Problems identified

• Not comfortable to play
• Too heavy
• Too thick
• Palm contact location inappropriate
• etc

15
Next generation?
Thinner body with narrowing bottom
LCD
Touch strip
Touchpad
16
Things to remember

• Be an advocate of the concept
• Realize Walkman-like
• portable instruments

• Round does not mean ergonomic
• Fingers have varying dexterity
• The palm deforms a lot.
• Mockup building helps!

motohat_at_stanford.edu
17
Acknowledgements

• Project teammates
• (Seth Nickell and Katia Zarrillo)
• Class teaching team at Stanford CCRMA
• (Professors Bill Verplank and Max Mathews,
• TAs Michael Gurevich and Wendy Ju)
• My research advisor, Professor Mark Cutkosky

18
Ergonomics fundamentals

• Avoid
• bad posture
• high stress (force)
• frequent repetition
• long duration

Maintain straight wrist
Know your limits. Take time to rest.
19
Things to remember

• Be an advocate of the concept
• Realize Walkman-like
• portable instruments

• Round does not mean ergonomic
• Fingers have varying dexterity
• The palm deforms a lot.
• Mockup building helps!

motohat_at_stanford.edu