Ergonomics 4.0: Human‐Centered Procedure for Ergonomic Design Using Virtual Reality Prototyping

When designing large‐scale products, like airplanes, involving the opinions from end‐users, like passengers, in conceptualization is difficult. Including user evaluation at the early stage is of foremost importance to develop products or services that reach user satisfaction. Comfort‐related assessments are particularly difficult to implement with digital models that are merely displayed on a desktop of a computer. Digital Human Modelling (DHM) benefited postural comfort analysis in the last three decades, while comfort evaluations are still largely subjective and rely on consulting with end‐users. This paper applied a human‐centered design process and used VR prototypes for comfort evaluation during concept design. This study focused on applying the Kano model with VR prototypes for concept selection and verification with potential end‐users. The results demonstrated that the first‐person immersion in VR headsets helps to identify the nuances between concepts, thus supports better decision‐making via collecting richer and more reliable user feedback to make faster and more satisfying improvements.