Learning Materials Life jacket - Issues The life jacket programme highlights the following issues in design for safety: the challenge of identifying ‘the user’ in the design process and reconciling different requirements: whose needs are more important, the ferry operator who will pay for the life jacket or the ferry passenger who will don it? the difficulty of controlling costs and finding economical ways of manufacture in developing a new design the role of user tests, conducted with scientific rigour and accuracy, in determining whether a design is effective in use the importance of ‘product intelligibility’, making a simple action such as donning a life jacket easy and intuitive to do - and not a complex, daunting task the role of international safety standards in ensuring that on-board marine equipment meets quality and performance standards the critical difference good design can make in life-and-death situations. Keywords constraints safety disaster ergonomics costs prototype experience testing user needs shape Many of the above keywords are explained further in Channel 4’s jargon-busting A to Z of design terms and design concepts. Click on the Channel 4 logo at the top of the page to visit the site.