Consumer Sensitivity to Vehicle Interior Component Adjustments 2012-01-0075

The number of adjustable vehicle interior components features is growing. For example, the number of adjustable components of a vehicle seat has been growing from 4-way to as many as 22-way. The presented study aims to develop understanding on how sensitive drivers and front passengers are to individual component adjustment of vehicle interior features. This understanding could provide insights on which adjustable vehicle interior components features are more important to be precisely adjusted. A commercially available full-size sedan, equipped with a 4-way adjustable steering column & wheel and an 8-way adjustable seat for drivers, and an 8-way adjustable seat for front passengers, was used in this study. A total of 29 and 30 consumers were participating in this study to adjust components to their comfort on driver and front passenger sides, respectively. Our data analysis reveals that, of all adjustable components studied, drivers are very sensitive to their preferred component positions of seat back angle, seat fore-aft and seat cushion angle, while front passengers are very sensitive to their preferred positions of the seat back angle and seat cushion angle. Even though the results of this study are pertaining to a specific vehicle and a relatively small consumer sample, the presented methodology is general enough to be used for gathering more occupant component adjustment preference data for further studies.