1. 1
Virtual User Concept for
Inclusive Design
of Consumer Products and
User Interfaces
Pierre T. Kirisci, University Bremen
BIK - Institute for Integrated Product
Development
2nd International Conference of AEGIS,
VICON Consortium
29.11.11 – 30.11.11, Brussels

2. VICON Results - Sketch Phase
2
VICON provides design
recommendations as
early as in the sketch
phase of product
development.

3. VICON Results - CAD Phase
3
VICON Virtual
User Model (VUM)
integrates with
CAD applications
(e.g. Siemens NX)

4. VICON Results - Evaluation Phase
4
VICON empowers the designer to experience consumer products
„through the eyes“ of the beneficaries.

5. VICON Results - Summarized
5
Ontology containing Reasoning containing
n Specific „User Model“ instances n Mass customization / classification of
(categorized personas with User Model Instances
impairments) n Binding of recommendations to:
n 10 abstract environments (e.g. n WHO ICF profile groups
cellar, kitchen, outdoor) n Environments
n Product-related tasks (e.g. dial a n Tasks
telephone number)
n Annotated CAD components
n 75 recommendations (e.g. glowing
buttons)
n quantitative recommendations (e.g.
dButton> 5mm)

6. VICON - Future Work
6
Finalization of implementation
n Evaluating/Testing accessibility issues through a 3D virtual user
interacting with the reference products (washing machine, mobile
phone)
Virtual Analysis of CAD products
Evaluation of VICON framework with designers
Compare product design processes of industry partners with and
without VICON
Create prototypes and evaluate:
n Software (by the designers)
n Consumer product prototypes (by the beneficiaries)

7. Synergies with AEGIS
7
VICON uses Datatype Properties, AEGIS uses Object
Properties
VICON reasoning contains information about user
model classification etc., AEGIS has no reasoning
VICON focusses on HW interfaces (e.g. washing
machine) vs. AEGIS on SW interfaces (e.g. website)
=> complement each other?

8. 8
Thanks for listening!
Pierre Taner Kirisci
University Bremen
BIK - Institute for Integrated Product
Development
kir@biba.uni-bremen.de
www.vicon-project.eu
www.inclusiveproducts.eu
This research was conducted on behalf of the VICON project which is funded by the European
Commission.