In this paper a method for a user-centred design is presented. The method, based on key concepts of kansei engineering, proposes several improvements. It was applied to the case of the front-end design of a car. User-friendly interfaces have been developed to collect data from user-tests. According to the subjects, the tests were very interesting if not pleasant. The phase 1 of the method uses a set of existing cars and the semantic differential method for the definition of the perceptual space of the cars. The results show first that the inter-subjects differences according to the product semantics are not so large: subjects are fairly consensual. Secondly, the parallel with the facial expressions of human faces is an interesting way in order to define the semantic attributes and to study the design factors: again, the consensus between the subjects is rather good. After a classification of the cars, groups and prototypes of groups were defined. The morphological analysis of the groups allows the definition of the main design factors of the groups, and the factors levels. For one group of car, the phase 2 of the method has been carried out. The phase 2 of the method uses a full factorial design for the user's preference assessment. Virtual reality tools and digital mock-ups were used to generate various products: the main advantage is that it allows the designer to parameterize the product and to finely control the influence of a given modification of the design factors on the product semantics. To reduce the evaluation time by each subject, an incomplete factorial design has been proposed, the preference assessment being carried out by pairwise comparisons. The average preference score of the panel has been computed, and the links between the design factors and the preference has been studied with conjoint analysis. Design rules can be extracted from the utility of each design factor level.The results of preference mappings show that the inter-subjects differences according to the preference must be studied. In perspective, fractional factorial design will be used to take into account more design factors and levels. An individual preference study will be carried out and, more importantly in design, it is proposed to consider a conjoint analysis model with interaction to study the interactions between the design factors. It will also tried to 'customize' cars designed for a specific panel of users (young, old, feminine or masculine... ).


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    Title :

    Study of the correlations between user preferences and design factors: Application to cars front-end design


    Additional title:

    Untersuchung der Korrelationen zwischen Nutzerpreferenzen und Design-Faktoren: Anwendung auf das Design der Fahrzeugfront


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2007


    Size :

    12 Seiten, 10 Bilder, 4 Tabellen, 23 Quellen


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Storage medium


    Language :

    English





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