Research Of Sense Compensation Product Design Based On Barrier-free Design

Barrier-free design refers that environmental or product design should offer convenience for all the users within the range of possibilities, despite their sexes, ages and abilities.This paper included four parts: barrier-free design, research of 'users', barrier-free product and sense compensation. It began with the background of barrier-free design, discussed its development and principles, presented the limitation of present theory and methods and tried to pave the way for its further research. 'Users' here referred to the disabled group, such as the handicapped and the aged, who had physiological defects. This paper discussed the category of disability and the physical features of the aged, which was the physiological basis of sense compensation. Besides, it analyzed their psychological problems and consumption psychology, which was the mental basis of sense compensation. With product function analysis, it put forward a series of features of barrier-free products. Different breakthrough points lead to different results. The point in this paper was sense compensation. Man's first cognition of the world comes from sense organs. However, just because of the functional disorders of some of their sense organs, 'users' of barrier-free design lose their abilities of apperceiving the world normally. Sense compensation means that when the function of some sense organs is in disorder, the function of other organs will increase accordingly. Through analyzing human's perception system, the paper tried to figure out the category of sense compensation, and to show directions for product design. Lastly, taking household air-conditioner remote controller for example, combining visual, auditory and tactile information in a whole sense information system of the controller, and researching the usage of the users with visual and auditory disability, therefore, sense compensation would be proved as an effective barrier-free design method.