Resumen
The article focuses on achieving essential strengths in design, sound, picture, user interaction and system integration. Bang & Olufsen (B&O) is a manufacturer of high-end home electronics, mostly integrated audio and video systems, televisions, VCR's, radios and the like. The company wishes to offer the customer the best of two worlds, the emotional experience and technical capability. User interaction is one of the core competencies at B&O. At B&O, the objective is that the interface should be transparent to the user, with a playful feeling that will make its use enjoyable and inspiring. Using home electronics-watching television, listening to the radio or CDs-is different from conventional human-computer interaction (HCI) in a workplace setting. There are some obvious differences between home electronics and HCI in the workplace. First, consumer electronics are intended for leisure activities. Users are thus typically inherently motivated to use the equipment and their activities are directly related to the gratification of their own personal needs. Second, skilled operation of equipment in the workplace is presumed to require the acquisition of special knowledge which is not presumed to be attainable by everyone. At B&O, development of user interfaces takes place in a term comprised of a team leader, a user interface designer, a psychologist, a member from "Idealand," an ad hoc associated software developer, a narrator, and an integrator. INSET: Untited.