Creative design research of product appearance based on human-machine interaction and interface

According to traditional design theory, the Function-Behavior-Structure design model, pays more attention to the function and structure of the product. However this model still cannot strengthen the relationship between product appearance design and human-machine design effectively. This paper adopt converse design thinking and presents a improved design thinking methodology based on Constraint: Function-Behavior-Structure for product appearance design and give a general summarization of the features, methods and technology based on human-machine interaction and interface (HMI&I). At the same time it also combines with the behavior design of product related IT fields and constructs a new outline to improve the design of product appearance supported by the technology of computer aided design (CAD). Thus a new method about design thinking for CAD, a new abstract product design model and the key problem of design thinking based on HMI&I are addressed in this paper. The creative design theory that is driven by HMI&I will help in the development of a CAD software system and in the research of product design and manufacture. Additionally the trend of design thinking based on the technology of HMI&I are also analyzed and discussed at the end of the paper. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.