Week7: Body - “Man is the measure of all things” and human centric design

The night before the class, I was watching my cat dragging a poly bag with his claw. He does that everyday so I always took it for granted, but this time, since I was desperately seeking an idea for ergonomics design, his movement seemed more worthy to notice.
When cat's 'using' his claw, it looks very efficient 'tool'. On the other hand, the claw could be switched as a weapon anytime he needs.

When it comes to 'nail' of human beings, the usefulness has decreased so that not many people could believe it as a lethal weapon except some martial arts performer.

I asked three of my ITP friends for their immediate reaction and there were very interesting opinions from each person.
Sanjay loved the beauty of the thing saying 'a total gangsta', Taylor thought it reminded her of great-great-great grand mother's belonging, and lastly, Jong-min didn't say a thing but spent longest time just to keep staring at it!


It is interesting to experience that designing sometimes brings a totally unexpected reactions even though I desperately hope that the users will
understand my intention.

Letting users define possible functions, even if one could say it's a 'decorative' rather than functional, taught me (to be continued)