Abstract
Automotive seat comfort has become a major aspect in differentiation and customisation amongst competitors in a highly saturated automotive market. Unlike discomfort, the concept of comfort is regarded a highly subjective and multi-faceted phenomenon. This paper describes an experimental study to explore the differences in the perception of comfort brought about by the mere manipulation of the visual appearance in otherwise two identical automotive seats. In particular it will investigate the hypothesised underlying mechanisms related to the concepts of product personality and affective responses, thereby proposing a theoretical model. In addition, as hypothesised the results showed significant gender effect where by female participants were found to be considerably more sensitive to the impact of visual appearance on comfort. The results are discussed in the context of potential underlying mechanisms relating visual appearance to aesthetics, emotion, and product personality and user image. Suggestions for future studies are provided with regards to visual design parameters and their effect on the perception of automotive seat comfort.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages | 172-180 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Publication status | Published - 2016 |
| Event | 10th International Conference on Design & Emotion - Amsterdam, Netherlands Duration: 27 Sep 2016 → 30 Sep 2016 |
Conference
| Conference | 10th International Conference on Design & Emotion |
|---|---|
| Country | Netherlands |
| City | Amsterdam |
| Period | 27/09/16 → 30/09/16 |
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Bibliographical note
The full text is available from: http://www.de2016.org/proceedingsKeywords
- Automotive seat
- Comfort experience
- Product appearance
- Product personality
- Self-congruence
- seat comfort
Cite this
Erol, T., Diels, C., Shippen, J., Richards, D., & Johnson, C. (2016). How does car seat appearance influence perceived comfort. 172-180. Paper presented at 10th International Conference on Design & Emotion, Amsterdam, Netherlands.