Instilling Customer Trust
Pursuing Universal Design
Universal Design Approach
Canon strives to create people-friendly products by pursuing functionality, operability and convenience from the customer's perspective in actual usage situations. As part of this drive, we have adopted a universal design approach through which we endeavor to create products from a customer perspective from the design stage onward, facilitating use by all customers, regardless of age, gender, nationality, or physical ability. In plain terms, Canon's mantra is "Design for use," and it is from that perspective that we approach product design and development.
For example, we conduct user-centric testing of display characters, audible alerts and voice guidance in our product controls, and check the extent to which terminology, icons and other features match the perceptions of customers, so as to evaluate usability, accessibility, safety, comfort and other criteria. This is valuable in the development of more user-friendly products.
Canon also seeks to comply with laws and regulations associated with accessibility, such as Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act in the United States. The results of evaluations of Canon products in regard to the Section 508 accessibility standards are posted on the Canon U.S.A. website, and are also recorded on the U.S. General Services Administration database.
- *Accessibility
Ease of use by the elderly and the physically challenged.
PIXMA series operational panel featuring design considerations for the differences in the way people discern color
The Universal Design Project
Canon incorporates universal design as an aspect of our policy of "making user-friendly products." We launched our Companywide Universal Design Project in 2009 with the goal of further encouraging this effort and presenting Canon's universal design approach to customers. We then drew up a universal design policy, accordingly.
We continued our efforts in 2010 by distributing to our development divisions a pamphlet outlining a variety of users' physical characteristics and usage issues to increase universal design awareness. We also distributed pamphlets describing Canon's efforts toward universal design to customers at product exhibitions.
In 2011, we posted our universal design approach and design guideline as well as actual case studies of our efforts on our company website with the aim of promoting better understanding of Canon's universal design approach.
We will continue to work to develop products that all of our customers can use with ease, as well as generate new product value with the aim of increasing the satisfaction of a broader range of users.
Universal Design Case Study
imageRUNNER ADVANCE MFDs: Comprehensive Universal Design Know-How
Canon utilizes opinions and requests from customers to positive effect in the design of new products. In pursuit of the ultimate easy-use office network multifunction devices (MFDs), we launched the imageRUNNER ADVANCE in September 2009, leveraging our accumulated expertise in universal design. We incorporated an array of functions into this model, focusing on the key word "user- centric," which prioritizes customer ease of use.
We further expanded our product lineup and functions in 2010, and also published a brochure as a message to our customers about our use of universal design in the imageRUNNER ADVANCE series. We distributed these brochures at CEATEC JAPAN, an IT/Electronics exhibition that took place at Makuhari Messe in October 2011, and also made them available on our website. We have also composed an English version of this brochure for distribution by sales companies in the United States and Europe.
Large, bright LCD touch panel allows users to customize the display menu and can be adjusted to the desired angle
Voice-recognition control supports basic operations
Color Universal Design Certification for All PIXMA Series Models
Canon's PIXUS (known as PIXMA outside Japan) series of inkjet printers sold in Japan has received Color Universal Design certification*1 for incorporating color universal design throughout the entire products, including LCD displays. Each model in the PIXUS series was awarded Color Universal Design certification in 2010.
Color universal design is founded on the notion that the ability to acquire information should not be affected by differences in color perception. In addition to careful determination of the color schemes to assure that the necessary information can be easily acquired regardless of individual differences in color perception, Canon also incorporate assistive measures, such as text prompts.
Not only does the PIXUS series offer improved color perceptibility in the operational panel GUI (Graphical User Interface)*2, color universal design is also applied to the color scheme on levers and other parts to make the products easy for all users to operate.
We will continue to upgrade the readability of our LCD displays.
- *1Color Universal Design certification
This certification is offered by the Color Universal Design Organization, a Japanese NPO. It is awarded to products and facilities designed with consideration for visibility to the user, without exclusion based on color perception. - *2GUI (Graphical User Interface)
Abundant use of graphics to provide information to users, facilitating intuitive operation, usually through touch panel displays or mouse operation.
Color Universal Design makes it easier to see how much ink remains.
The CUD Mark, found only on products that have received Color Universal Design certification.
Improving User Manual Quality
Another aspect of Canon's universal design approach focuses on improving the quality of user manuals along with improving product operability.
Manual quality is not only about accuracy of information, but also involves usage quality, such as understandability, searchability and overall effectiveness. Since 2008 we have taken measures to improve the quality of our manuals, such as establishing the Manual Quality Assurance Process and improving our Usage Quality Standards, and we have made continuous improvements to content based upon these. At the same time, checking on the effects of the improvements by gathering and analyzing market appraisals allowed us to improve the manuals.
We revised the font size, contrast and design in the user manuals for our digital compact camera models in 2011 to make them more legible and readable. These will be included with products sold from spring 2012.
We continue to pursue such improvements as offering online manual access and incorporating operational support information into the hardware.
Example of page design for better readability
Example of improved explanation illustration
Pursuing Beauty and Comfort
To provide higher quality products, Canon has formulated methods for quantitatively evaluating and measuring the beauty and comfort that people feel from printed materials. We have used these methods to develop practical tools to consistently achieve uniform, high-quality color reproduction from input to output.
In order to expand the benefits of our findings to video media, we are establishing techniques for evaluating and measuring the beauty and viewer comfort of TV and video images.
With respect to sound, we have researched the auditory impact on users of sounds from product operations and ambient noise, with the aim of creating the most pleasing sounds. We are also developing quiet products that generate minimal operating noise.
