Ergonomics and Aesthetics of Seats Based on Users’ Preferences: Neuroergonomics and EEG Approach

Abstract

Industrial designers prioritize the aesthetics of their products, drawing upon their visual training and pastexperiences to align with consumer preferences and evoke specific user emotions. Ergonomists, conversely,emphasize factors like safety, productivity, ease of use, and comfort in human-machine interactions, often sideliningaesthetic considerations. This study explores how the appearance of office furniture influences user perceptions ofergonomically-related comfort. We employed a method that evaluates the aesthetic indicators of Nilper chairs using brain wave mapping and measurements from an Electroencephalography (EEG) device. In a controlled lab experiment, forty participants were exposed to images of products, categorized as top sellers and low sellers. Our findings indicate that products with lower sales elicit narrower ranges of N100, N200, and P300 brain wave activity. This underscores theimpact of design aesthetics on attention and product choice. Furthermore, our results suggest the potential of neuroaesthetic evaluation methods to gauge product preference even before market release.