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What are the anthropometric data and ergonomics in relation to cot design? There seems to be a gradual increase in body dimensions as each decade goes by; for example, there seems to be about a 10 mm increase in adult stature for each decade. This may not apply to babies, but it is something of which to be aware. Babies of different ethnic origin, and fed according to different nutritional beliefs, and dependent on different food availability, may well have measurable differences in their anthropometry. You may have to take this into account as well. Beware of the fallacy of thinking that if a baby is of 'average' height (50th percentile), for example, then all the baby's other dimensions will be 50th percentile as well. This is never the case; nobody is on exactly the same percentile for all body dimensions. Nor should you design for the 'average' person; you should be aiming to accommodate at least 90% of the population. In other words, your design needs to be suitable for a given envelope of people, for instance from the 5th percentile in stature to the 95th percentile. You may need to change your criterion for different aspects of the design; for instance, if you think about mums leaning over the edge of the cot, you might like to fix the height of the side of the cot at the 5th percentile of waist height, to be reasonably sure that 95% of mums won't have a problem leaning in to attend to the baby. You might like to check your design requirements and criteria first - legal issues (especially to do with safety and fire), and the standards created by the BSI, CEN and ISO. Then ask yourself 3 questions: 'Who are the users?' (babies, mums, others?); 'What will they use it for?' (baby playing, baby sleeping, sick baby, travel cot, etc.); and 'What are the usability requirements arising from these?' (portability, safety, ease of cleaning, comfort, etc.). You will get your best answers by talking to mums. Then you have a basis for doing the design. Note that people are notoriously bad at telling you what they want; they are much better at telling you what they have got already. You have to listen very carefully to find out what they really want. Also, watch mums doing jobs with cots, and around cots. This will give you some ideas as well. When you think you have some new design ideas, try them out as soon as possible. This is when you may well get some good feedback from mums, because they are faced with something new, and this can prompt some really useful comments from them. Then try the new ideas out. This approach is called 'Rapid Prototyping', and it works very well. |
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