Prospective ergonomics for the design of future things.

This position paper gives an overview of the field of Prospective Ergonomics (PE) for the design of future products, services, processes, and systems. It presents its definition, links with innovation, characteristics, origin, history, goal, supports, and methods to help people imagine the future. In recent years, PE has been rediscovered, actualised and repositioned to give it greater scope and visibility, and stimulate research, training and professional practice in ergonomics for the design of future things.

Aircraft passenger comfort experience: underlying factors and differentiation from discomfort.

Previous studies defined passengers' comfort based on their concerns during the flight and a set of eight experiential factors such as 'peace of mind', 'physical wellbeing', 'pleasure', etc. One Objective of this paper was to determine whether the factors underlying the passengers' experience of comfort differ from those of discomfort. Another objective was to cross-validate those factors.

The thematic structure of passenger comfort experience and its relationship to the context features in the aircraft cabin.

This paper describes passenger comfort as an experience generated by the cabin interior features. The findings of previous studies are affirmed regarding a set of 22 context features. Passengers experience a certain level of comfort when these features impact their body and elicit subjective perceptions.

Measuring a product's usefulness.

This paper explains how a product's usefulness may be defined and measured. Many aspects of consumer product assessments are conducted sub-consciously and this process is closely examined. A product's usefulness can be evaluated by measuring its advantages over alternative solutions based on specific criteria associated with fundamentals needs.

Prospective ergonomics: origin, goal, and prospects.

So far ergonomics has been concerned with two categories of activities: correction and design. We propose to add a third category: prospection, and by so doing, we introduce a new series of activities that opens up the future of ergonomics. Corrective ergonomics relates to the past and comes with a demand and a client.