The Universal Design of Microwave Oven considering Old Persons

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Universal design is an approach to create environments and products that recognizes the diversity of users, regardless of their ability or age. Recently, old person and disabled person rapidly go on increasing in number. So, universal design concept becomes more and more important in product and environment, etc. In this study, we dealt with the universal design problem of microwave oven considering old persons. New design model for microwave oven was developed and evaluated using human factors approach. The principles of universal design was developed through literature survey and questionnaire survey for old persons, and then design alternatives were developed according to these principles. Two experiments were performed in this study. The purpose of the first experiment was to select final design alternative and the experiment was performed using rapid prototypes. The second one was a usability testing for the real model of final alternative. In this experiment, the real model was compared with the existing real product. As the result, the new design model was a little more excellent than the existing model in usability.