ELSEVIER International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 19 (1997) 105-114 Industrial Ergonomics Application studies to car interior of Kansei engineering Tomio Jindo *, Kiyomi Hirasago Vehicle Research Laboratory, Nissan Research Center. Nissan Motor Co., Lid. 1. Natsushima-cho, Yokosuka 237. ,lapan Abstract This paper describes studies of styling or design specification of passenger car interiors as examples of application of Kansei engineering, especially regarding the speedometer and steering wheel of a passenger car. These units require easy operation or good visibility, but we did not consider these functions here and treated only the styling impression. Subjective evaluations were carried out by semantic differential methods, then analyzed by using multivariate analyses. We gathered the results concerning the relationship between an impression and characteristics of styling to understand the conditions which create a desired impression. Relevance to industry These studies were carried out to improve the cabins of passenger cars. We can also apply similar methods of styling to other industry products. Kevwords: Kansei engineering: SD method; Automobile design: Multivariate analysis 1. Introduction According to a recent passenger car's improve- ment of basic functions, the user's demand for a car shifted from functional aspects to a total ambience including styling. Therefore, when designing a car interior, Kansei engineering is used to grasp vague demands of the consumer, and develop the car based on the user's words. As an example, there is support for expert systems relating styling to car interiors. This was based upon the analysis data showing a relationship between human impression and interior design. Fig. 1 shows a rough construction and flow :' Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 468-67-5158, Fax: +81 468-65-5699, E-mail: jindo@nova.lab.nissan.co.jp. chart. For example 'sporty' is the input and this system shows the suitable graphics for that adjective on the CRT. However, this system included many car interior parts like seats, a speedometer, a steering wheel, switches and so on. Detailed information about each part's design elements could not be gained because it was impossible to carry out actual experiments using so many samples in order to analyze detail design elements of each part. Therefore, we studied only one interior unit with detail design elements and analyzed the relationships between design elements and impressions. By doing this, more practical knowledge was gained than by conventional experiments which study many interior units. Adding this data to conventional data, regard- ing impressions of these units in styling, supports 0169-8141/96/$15.00 Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science B,V. All rights reserved. PII S0169-8141(96)00007-8