Editorial: Comfort and discomfort studies demonstrate the need for a new model

doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2011.06.001

Applied Ergonomics

Volume 43, Issue 2, March 2012, Pages 271-276

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2011.06.001 Get rights and content

Abstract

The term comfort is often seen relating to the marketing of products like chairs, cars, clothing, hand tools and even airplane tickets, while in the scientific literature, the term discomfort shows up often, since it is used in research. Few papers explain the concept of a localized comfort experience in relation to product use, although people use these products daily. Therefore, in this special issue, the concept of product comfort is studied further. In this editorial an overview of comfort models has been made, evaluated with the papers from the special issue and a new comfort/discomfort model is proposed to increase our understanding of the factors influencing comfort and discomfort experiences.

Section snippets

The need for a special issue

Current bundling of the knowledge on comfort and discomfort has been limited, while the need for this knowledge is crucial, since people use products related to comfort every day, such as clothes, hand tools, kitchen appliances, computers and their workstations at the office and home as well as seats in cars, trains, airplanes and at the office. If we look at the trends like “attention to health”, “graying of the workforce (and population)”, “environmental awareness” and “attention to

The definition of comfort and the new knowledge in the papers

The definition of comfort in this special issue is: “comfort is seen as pleasant state or relaxed feeling of a human being in reaction to its environment” and “discomfort is seen as an unpleasant state of the human body in reaction to its physical environment”. The theory of Helander and Zhang (1997) convinced us that there was a division or discontinuity between comfort and discomfort scales while the model of De Looze et al. (2003) convinced us to add the physical dimension to the discomfort

Comfort and discomfort division of Helander and Zhang

Helander and Zhang (1997) influenced the comfort research field as they distinguished comfort and discomfort. In the late 1950s, Herzberg et al. (1959) interviewed employees to find out what made them satisfied and dissatisfied on the job. Physical factors, according to Herzberg, cannot motivate employees but can minimize dissatisfaction, if handled properly. In other words, they can only dissatisfy if they are not all right. Dissatisfaction is related to company policies and salary.

An often cited comfort model by De Looze

A comfort model often cited with respect to product comfort is the model by De Looze et al. (2003), which shows a relationship between physical product feature experiences with respect to discomfort and comfort (see Fig. 1). The special issue papers are related to the relationships in this model. In the model shown in Fig. 1, different factors underlying sitting discomfort and comfort are described, as well as the relationships among these factors.

Following the discontinuity of discomfort and

The relationship between the model and these special issue papers

Fig. 2, shows how the papers in this special issue are positioned within De Looze et al (2003) model. The key element from each paper has been noted and connected to the model.

Model by Moes (2005)

Another model that could be utilized to explain the process of discomfort experience is the model of Moes (2005). Moes (2005) has established five phases in the process before discomfort is experienced (see Fig. 3). I – interaction, E − effect in the internal body, P - perceived effects, A - appreciation of the effects and D – discomfort. Moes (2005) also describes that this process is dependent on the person, the seat, the purpose and why the seat is used. Moes (2005) describes that if a

Both models reflected

The advantage of having ten experiments clustered on (dis)comfort in one issue of Applied Ergonomics is that the outcomes of the studies can be related to these models. The model of Moes (2005) is simple and linear and explains the process more clearly as the step between interaction and internal effects and weighting the internal to check whether it is appreciated are explicitly shown. It fits well with the findings in the paper by Franz et al. (2010) in this special issue, where subjects

New comfort model

Based on these reflections we propose a new model (see Fig. 4), which is heavily inspired by the models of Moes and De Looze. The interaction (I) with an environment is caused by the contact (could also be a non-physical contact, like a signal in the study of De Korte et al. (2010)) between the human and the product and its usage. This can result in internal human body effects (H), such as tactile sensations, body posture change and muscle activation. The perceived effects (P) are influenced by

New research

The work of Moes (2005) and De Looze et al. (2003) was useful as it has brought knowledge on products and (dis)comfort a step further toward conceptualization. However, in the future, definition the usage/tasks (see the paper of Groenesteijn et al., 2010) and the characteristics of the people performing those tasks is needed first and only then should the design of the products and testing the effects occur. The last element, performing experiments or tests is often missing. These outcomes of

Conclusion

As is mentioned above more research is needed in the field of product comfort and the model described in Fig. 4 could be helpful in understanding the comfort issues. However, some conclusions from the studies in this special issues can be drawn for designers, which need to be studied further as well as these are based on a limited number of studies:

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Be aware of the fact that using different sensory channels (e.g. separating visual and tactile input) can influence the comfort experience.
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Often

Acknowledgement

The editors would like to thank Pascale Carayon, John Wilson and Henny Knijnenburg for their wonderful support in making this special issue. The editors also would like to thank the authors of all the papers submitted to this special issue and the reviewers that supported us in selecting ten papers and improving the ten selected: C. Bazley, Jimconna, USA; R. Bubb, TU Munchen, Germany; Ching-Fu Chen, National University Taiwan; A.M. de Jong, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands; E. de

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EditorialEditorial: Comfort and discomfort studies demonstrate the need for a new model

Abstract

Section snippets

The need for a special issue

The definition of comfort and the new knowledge in the papers

Comfort and discomfort division of Helander and Zhang

An often cited comfort model by De Looze

The relationship between the model and these special issue papers

Model by Moes (2005)

Both models reflected

New comfort model

New research

Conclusion

Acknowledgement

Applied Ergonomics

International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics

International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics

A conceptual model for work-related neck and upper limb disorders

Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health

Sitting comfort and discomfort and the relationships with objective measures

Ergonomics

A field study of supplementary rest breaks for data entry operators

Ergonomics

Editorial
Editorial: Comfort and discomfort studies demonstrate the need for a new model