BE Aerospace

The Challenge: To improve the human factors and industrial design implications of prototypical seating controls developed for the airline industry. Secondly, to conduct a series of usability tests to study the intuitiveness of the control movement, the comfort of the various postures that the seat afforded, and the general utility of the seat movements.

The Approach:

• Performed an ergonomic and human factors assessment of prototyped seat controls.
• Constructed a mock-up of an airplane cabin interior in HumanCentric's usability labs.
• Conducted usability tests with users of all sizes to study short-term and long-term comfort and convenience of prototyped seats.
• Provided ergonomic data for and design improvements to the developmental seating design.

The Result: An improved and less-costly seat mechanism that allowed users to move the seat into postures that are natural and expected, and, elimination of specific seating features that were not well tolerated or understood which ultimately saved design and engineering dollars.

Services: Human factors, User research, Usability testing