Consumer electronics: Shrinking products pose problems: Small, well-designed audio and video units capture the buyer´s fancy but challenge human-factors engineers

Consumer electronics companies are advertising a television set that is `smaller than a paperback book´, video recorders `light enough to sit on eggs´, and typewriters only slightly larger `than an eyeglass case´. Electronics equipment for the typical office and home is getting smaller. The problems faced by the manufacturer in producing these and similar small-scale products as well as those faced by the consumer in using them are discussed.