Authors
Abstract(s)
The aim of this dissertation is to study and assess comfort, pleasure and cognitive
engineering for relevance in engineering design processes, working towards finding
an integrated theoretical structure. From this overall aim, operative aims and research
questions were derived and pursued with the support of literature studies and analysis
of five empirical studies. The operative aims are: establish the levels of scientific
knowledge (in terms of development potential and feasibility); test the levels of
development in practice of theoretical structures, data collection methods and
representation formats; and, apply activity theory to attempt compatibilizing the three
theoretical structures (broken down into subconcepts, operatives and measurable
variables). Conclusions and conclusive remarks are delivered, springing from the
analyses made.
The results of the assessments of model validity and maturity showed that universal
design methods in comfort, pleasure and cognitive engineering, for direct application
by engineering design, are presently not available, with an exception found for
thermal comfort. Predictability concerning seat comfort, cognitive engineering and
pleasure with products has not yet been achieved, but it is deemed feasible for some
of their sub-areas: modelling physical discomfort in sitting, modelling pleasurable
product properties for cultural sub-groups and predicting patterns of the impact of
change on joint cognitive systems. Other sub-areas are not considered worthwhile
pursuing for attaining engineering systematization, since their predictability is not
deemed attainable. This situation hence precludes the development of a complete
integrated comfort, pleasure and cognitive engineering design method for unaided
application by engineering design. In these areas, design problems are thus better
tackled using a combined process of research and design, which recurs to the existing
theoretical structures but also to context based research intended to fill in the gaps of
theory.
A moderate level of compatibility between the theoretical structures of comfort,
pleasure and cognitive engineering was attained. While pleasure pursues in practice
the goal of adding gains, comfort and cognitive engineering struggle in practice with
relieving pain and minimizing loss. The psychological human aspect is common to all
three areas, although it is not pursued in practice in comfort, nor does cognitive
engineering pursue in practice the psychological aspect of emotions. Partial
commonalities were found between comfort and pleasure (in what concerns physical
aspects) and between cognitive engineering and pleasure (in what concerns
psychological aspects) at the level of subconcepts. A common underlying activity
structure of activity-goal-user-artefact was demonstrated for the empirical studies
dealing with comfort and cognitive engineering. This showed, for both areas, that
deriving measurable variables and identifying operatives could be done from the
operation level of activity theory, once the elements relevant to the design problem
are classified according to the activity-user-goal-artefact categories. Activity theory
also enabled structuring and organizing a common research-design process underlying
the conduction of specific design studies in comfort and cognitive engineering. This
process is also suggested as applicable for designing Human Factors and Ergonomics
quality wherever theory gaps are found.
Description
Keywords
Theory and methods Human factors quality Product development Ergonomics
Citation
Publisher
Universidade da Beira Interior