Usability Ranking of Intercity Bus Passenger Seats Using Fuzzy Axiomatic Design Theory

Usability, considering user satisfaction along with the user performance, is one of the key factors in determining the success of a product in today’s competitive market. Designing usable intercity bus seats is important for passengers during the long hours of traveling. Comfort, aesthetic, safety, convenience to the body posture, durability, harmoniousness with the seat accessories and operability are expected usability dimensions of seats for both user and the designers. Aim of this study is to identify and rank ten alternative seats of an intercity bus manufacturing company according to these usability attributes. The products are evaluated by five subjects and assessed for each usability attributes by using linguistic variables. Then Fuzzy Axiomatic Design Theory (FADT), which is the combination of second axiom, is used as a multi attribute decision making tool to determine most usable seat design solution. Design range is defined by design engineers and system ranges for seats are obtained from linguistic assessment of five subjects for applying conformance testing in cooperative engineering.