Determining Consumer Preference Through an Interactive Virtual Reality Experience

该研究奖项旨在通过虚拟现实（VR）环境，研究一种正式且可重复的方法，以揭示客户在美学、人体工程学和易用性方面对产品体验的偏好。该方法将在虚拟现实环境中，对联合分析（传统上用于营销的方法）进行持续的、基于视觉的扩展。消费者对美学、人体工程学和易用性的偏好将通过VR环境中的互动调查得出。将进行一系列认知和相互作用研究，以确定获得有意义的偏好函数的最佳环境。约束条件的影响也将被研究。该作品可应用于多种实物产品；长途卡车仪表盘和座舱的设计将证明其有效性。由此产生的技术和方法将在整个设计过程中尽早使用，并且经常使用，而不需要物理原型的成本，从而提高客户满意度，并希望提高使用产品的热情。该研究将利用和扩展与虚拟现实技术相关的功能，展示VR在设计过程中的新用途。本研究将通过确定美学、人体工程学和易用性偏好在虚拟环境中的效用函数来进一步研究和设计过程的能力，虚拟环境比以前的能力更接近现实生活中的交互，并在决策建模中包含更多消费者偏好的情感方面。这项工作还将有助于互动的K-5外展工作，这些学生将学习VR和产品设计，然后虚拟体验和操纵他们的环境；目标是让孩子们从小就对工程感兴趣。

This research award investigates a formal and repeatable approach to uncovering what customers prefer in terms of the aesthetic, ergonomic and ease of use experience of a product through a Virtual Reality (VR) environment. The approach will use a continuous, visual-based extension of conjoint analysis - a method traditionally used in marketing - immersed within a VR environment. Consumer preferences for aesthetics, ergonomics and ease of use will be derived through interactive surveys within the VR environment. A series of cognitive and interaction studies will be preformed to determine the best environment to derive meaningful preference functions. The effect of constraints will also be studied. The work can be applied to a variety of physical products; the design of a long-haul truck instrument panel and cockpit will demonstrate its effectiveness. The resulting technology and method is intended to be used early and often throughout the design process, without the cost of physical prototyping, thus increasing customer satisfaction and, hopefully, enthusiasm for use of the product.The research will utilize and expand the capabilities associated with Virtual Reality technology, demonstrating a new use of VR in the design process. This research will further the study and capabilities of the design process by determining utility functions of aesthetic, ergonomic and ease of use preferences within a virtual environment that is significantly closer to real life interaction than previous capabilities, and include more emotional aspects of consumer preference in decision modeling. This work will also contribute an interactive K-5 outreach effort where these students will learn about VR and product design, and then experience and manipulate their environment virtually; the goal is to excite children about engineering at a young age.