'The feasibility of Salutogenic Theory in product design
Authors: Liu Shuo-Fang , Cai Jiahao 
Published: June 2023

With the four industrial revolutions, human social behavior and needs have grown and changed at a high rate. Design also continues to differentiate and evolve with human needs. In terms of product ergonomics, it can be divided into two important research directions: human mental perception of products and the physiological impact of products on people. However, current systems and basic concepts of product design methods lack the role and impact of cognitive processing on human perception and emotion.This paper we are discussing the area of mental cognition of products. From the perspective of cognitive ergonomics, it involves human mental processes such as perception, memory, reasoning, and motor response. For the elements of cognitive human factors engineering. In 1988, Norman proposed three design levels corresponding to cognitive psychology in product de-sign, including instinctive design level, behavioral design level, and reflective design level. The instinctive design level is very much associated with the image of the product itself, the behavioral design level corresponds to the functional use and interaction of the product, and the reflective design level corresponds to the spiritual and psychological needs of human be-ings(Norman, 1988). Human perception has influence on human psychology, and the relationship between psychological perception and health is highly relevant.In 1993, Antonovsky proposed the 6C theory and Salutogenic theory, arguing that human perception has a strong correlation with health, where health is identified as the ability of an individual to adapt physically and mental-ly and self-manage in the face of event stress, maintain dynamic calm and restore personal balance. 6C theory includes complexity, conflict, confusion, sense of coherence (SOC), civility, and coercion. The 6C's describe the different behavioral choices we can make to promote health in the face of stressors in our social system of existence and health. The interaction and use of the product can correspond to the six items of the 6C's theory, whether or not the cognition of the product and the difficulty of using the system create complexity, and complexity can create conflict, and the cognitive behavior of the designer and the cognitive behavior of the user may not always be consistent. The core of Salutogenic is the sense of coherence, and the sense of coherence (SOC) divides the world into three levels at the cognitive level: comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful. By comparing and analyzing the papers, Salutogenic and Norman's psycho-cognitive frameworks are highly relevant. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether people's perceptions of products can contribute to their health. The validity of the questionnaire items was verified by deforming Salutogenic's 29-item SOC Life Questionnaire from assessing individuals' perceptions of different elements of the product, conducting a questionnaire survey, and finally collecting data for testing. The feasibility of applying health promotion theory to product design was assessed to create the concept of healthful product design and the evaluation form of healthful product design.