Visualising ergonomic guidelines in product design to increase interest and efficiency

Guidelines and instructions are used in information and quality systems to ensure high quality and effective design and production processes. These could be presented on an intranet, visualised as a traditional report supporting distribution of printed documents. But this approach does not correspond to some company’s requirements on usability. However, multimedia techniques could visualise and let users interact with the information using hyperlinked text, pictures, and animations. The aim of the study is to design a system of guidelines visualised by means of interactive multimedia technology, considering cognitive theories and practical examples, and then compare usage of the system with another system visualising guidelines in form of a traditional report on scrollable web pages. The new system is a result of a participative design process with experts and potential users in collaboration with Saab Automobile. The new system was in general faster and was more enjoyable to use, which is likely to promote interest and learning about ergonomic issues.