To capture longer-term emotional reactions to the various aspects of seat adjustment controls, an alternative data capture method would be required, focusing on drivers of specific vehicles after a certain period of ownership. Commercial survey data fulfils this criterion and is more likely to be a good source of data to illustrate owners' ongoing issues with their own vehicles. It does not, however, capture the qualitative data that can help to understand the cause of a problem and derive a solution to it. There is, therefore, considerable value to be gained from running an event such as the customer clinic, to gain a deeper understanding of issues highlighted by commercial surveys, through qualitative data capture and analysis. This event confirmed certain aspects of commercial survey results, investigated causes behind the issues, and took a more affective approach to understanding what premium SUV owner/drivers want from their seat adjustment controls. A large sample size and non-control specific questioning enabled a comprehensive high-level content analysis to be performed on preference-related factors, but was of limited value for exploration of specific controls and functions as sample size (and hence, confidence) drops off as the subject of analysis becomes more specific. This paper considers the design of seat adjustment controls, as part of an EPSRC-funded research project investigating the future of Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs) in the premium automotive industry. The study takes a user-centred approach to collecting customer data relating to controls on existing vehicles, and applies sensory science techniques in an automotive engineering arena to address the affective elements of seat adjustment control design. A 101-participant customer clinic event was therefore held, with additional data sourced from a commercial survey. The data sets are analysed to make recommendations relating to functional and emotional aspects of seat adjustment control design. The conclusions of this study are presented as design recommendations, or guidelines, having been derived from the findings documented earlier, and are intended to offer guidance to designers of automotive seating systems and the driver/passenger-machine interface. Accessibility of controls: The location of seat adjustment controls should not be designed in isolation. Consideration must be given to how the user will reach for the controls and what features, both on the seat and the door trim, might obstruct hand access. Intuitiveness of operation: Basic seat adjustments can be controlled intuitively through the sense of touch, using appropriately shaped switches (i.e., depicting the base and back of the seat). Other more specialised functions, in particular memory settings, do not lend themselves to intuitive operation through the sense of touch alone, and their inclusion on a side-of-seat switchpack with the basic controls may I simply increase the complexity of operation of all functions. To avoid this, site these secondary function controls away from the basic seal adjustment controls, preferably in the user's line of sight. General usability: The research findings showed a preference for larger, economically shaped controls, shaped to resemble the base and back of the seat. If these switches were not sized proportionately to each other (i.e., the seat base switch was much bigger than that for the seat back), however, this was often considered a negative attribute. The conclusions drawn from this research, whilst not proposing any fundamentally new concepts, do serve to highlight important priorities for the design of automotive seat adjustment controls, based on genuine customer data. The importance of involving the customer in the design process is well documented; yet despite this and the conclusions of this research, which are largely ergonomics best practice, the study participants still identified numerous negative issues with every one of the six premium SUVs chosen for investigation. This research, therefore, demonstrates that vehicle designers do need to understand their customers' priorities if they want to improve the user experience and their product's standing in the commercial surveys, which hold so much weight within the industry.


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    Title :

    User-centred design and evaluation of automotive seat adjustment controls


    Additional title:

    Benutzerorientiertes Design und Bewertung der Kfz-Sitzverstellungen


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2011


    Size :

    20 Seiten, 10 Bilder, 4 Tabellen, 17 Quellen




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




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