Mobile Convenience: A Design Concept to Comfort in Public Places and Gatherings

Abstract

Not being able to answer natures call, due to inadequate psycho-physical facilities, leads to a series of serious uneasiness. City bus stands, fairs, tourist gathering spots, public functions etc. like places where large number of people assemble and stay for long where the convenience facilities do not conform to the need and privacy, is a serious matter of concern. There are several aspects concerning the need that also include human ethics. Here design ergonomics can look into for designing a comfortable and trustworthy system. It is also noticed that situations where people gather for longer period of time, inspite of facilities being provided normally beyond the periphery of the location of event, people cannot leave the place to visit the designated permanent or makeshift arrangements for various reasons. Many-a-times the design also do not appear usable and inviting. A need towards looking into this issue from the design ergonomics point of view was felt during a session of internship assignments carried out by design students of NIT Rourkela at the Department of Design of IIT Guwahati recently. An attempt was made to investigate the issues and to conceive the possible design features and installations that would facilitate easy transportation, context specific identity and at the same time that would also not stand alone in appearance to disturb the gatherings’ movements. Design ideation focuses both on male and female requirement issues, installations, cleanings along with ease of manufacturing and maintenance. Relevant behaviour of the user groups with context specific identity was also kept under consideration in the ideation process. This paper demonstrates the salient design features of such facilities from the academic point of views using modular development approach.