PCQ: Preferred Comfort Questionnaires for product design

Selecting the most suitable questionnaire(s) in comfort research for product design is always a challenge, even for experienced researchers.

The objective of this research is to create a list of Preferred Comfort Questionnaires (PCQ) for product design to help researchers in the selection of questionnaires for comfort research.

Fifteen questionnaires that are often used in comfort research for product design were selected as candidate questionnaires. During the Second International Comfort Congress (ICC 2019), 55 researchers and practitioners working in the field of comfort joined together in a workshop to rate these questionnaires individually as well as rank them in groups based on their experience. The criteria of rating and ranking included easiness to answer, easiness for data interpretation, time needed to complete, the need for prior training, as well as mapping the applicable design phases and field of application.

The elicited responses related to each questionnaire were analyzed. For comfort research in five proposed application fields and four design phases, the preferred questionnaires were highlighted and categorized into four categories: preferred questionnaire, suitable for less prior training, suitable for fast completion and generally applicable, which led to a list of PCQ for product design.

We expect that the PCQ list can be used as a useful instrument to help researchers in selecting questionnaires for comfort research in product design.