This research award investigates a formal and repeatable approach to uncovering what customers prefer in terms of the aesthetic, ergonomic and ease of use experience of a product through a Virtual Reality (VR) environment. The approach will use a continuous, visual-based extension of conjoint analysis - a method traditionally used in marketing - immersed within a VR environment. Consumer preferences for aesthetics, ergonomics and ease of use will be derived through interactive surveys within the VR environment. A series of cognitive and interaction studies will be preformed to determine the best environment to derive meaningful preference functions. The effect of constraints will also be studied. The work can be applied to a variety of physical products; the design of a long-haul truck instrument panel and cockpit will demonstrate its effectiveness. The resulting technology and method is intended to be used early and often throughout the design process, without the cost of physical prototyping, thus increasing customer satisfaction and, hopefully, enthusiasm for use of the product.
The research will utilize and expand the capabilities associated with Virtual Reality technology, demonstrating a new use of VR in the design process. This research will further the study and capabilities of the design process by determining utility functions of aesthetic, ergonomic and ease of use preferences within a virtual environment that is significantly closer to real life interaction than previous capabilities, and include more emotional aspects of consumer preference in decision modeling. This work will also contribute an interactive K-5 outreach effort where these students will learn about VR and product design, and then experience and manipulate their environment virtually; the goal is to excite children about engineering at a young age.
