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About
Universal Design
Developing User-Friendly Products for All Users
Konica Minolta’s Commitment to Universal Design
Preparation of Design Guidelines Incorporating the Company’s Original Criteria
In creating our products, Konica Minolta is committed to enhancing ease of operation and user friendliness. To ensure that various types of users can enjoy using our products, we are creating our products in line with the concept of universal design. Applying this concept is particularly important to OA machines, such as multifunctional peripherals (MFPs), which are used by many people. Konica Minolta employs universal design guidelines for image information products. Using actual products, we repeated test operations, the results of which have been used to improve our design criteria, which are then incorporated in the guidelines. All our products, designed in compliance with the guidelines, feature excellent operability.
Konica Minolta is a member of the Human-Centered Design Subcommittee of the Technology Committee, Japan Business Machine and Information System Industries Association (JBMIA). The Company also participates in the Accessibility Project of JBMIA’s Standardization Center. Through these activities, we help prepare universal design criteria and promote universal design across the entire industry.
Digital Multifunctional Peripherals – the bizhub Series
Meticulous Consideration to Enhance Ease of Operation of Multifunctional Peripherals (MFPs)
Konica Minolta is seeking to offer products that are easy to use. We are striving to make our users feel comfortable when they use our products. To this end, we pay meticulous attention to the details of our product design.
Konica Minolta’s digital MFPs—the bizhub series, feature meticulous consideration for enhancing ease of operation: displays with greater visibility, buttons that are easier to press, paper outlets with a design that facilitates users in retrieving their printouts, and paper trays that are easier to grasp.
- Operation panel that can be tilted easily for greater operability
- "Free grip" that can be grasped from above and below
- "Front access" design, which gathers all devices that entail maintenance to the front side
- Paper outlet with groove to enable users to pick up paper with greater ease
- Automatic Document Feeder (ADF), featuring user-friendly design in product shape and display
Display using pictograms and illustrations. The tilted document scale and transparent paper guide plate enable users to confirm the paper location from lower angles. The translucent paper route enables users to easily locate their documents.
- LCD touch panel that enables users to magnify the display with one-touch operation
Universal Design Concepts Realized in Standard Models
Konica Minolta Seeks To Realize Universal Design Concepts Even in Standard Models
Universal design is not meant for use by people with special needs, but by all people. Based on this recognition, Konica Minolta believes that rather than offering optional parts that enhance operability for users with specific needs, we should design even our standard models from the perspective of universal design.
One example of our universal design concept is the tilting operation panel, which can be inclined in a desired direction. Our color digital MFP models for office use, launched in 2002 (CF3102 and CF2002), were the first in the industry to have tilting panels as standard. By the end of fiscal 2006, we had mounted tilting panels on all standard MFP models capable of processing 20 to 75 pages per minute, models that are in wide use at offices.
Moreover, the standard model in our color digital MFP series, the bizhub C550, launched in February 2007, is equipped with a control panel that can be tilted both vertically and horizontally.
The panel can be inclined up to 22 degrees (three steps) vertically and up to 30 degrees horizontally (stepless).
Color Universal Design
Use of Colors in Consideration of Those with Abnormal Color Perception
Our color digital MFP model, bizhub C550, launched in February 2007, employs blue LEDs for the start buttons lamp and other indicators. Since green and orange, the colors used for conventional lamps, are difficult to distinguish for some people with dyschromatopsia, we have adopted blue and orange lamps. This model, bizhub Ｃ550, has received the color universal design (CUD) certification mark from the NPO Color Universal Design Organization (CUDO).
