How can we improve effectiveness and efficiency in decision making during product development based on the results of subjective evaluations in real world assessment and structured evaluations?
Synopsis
In a "structured evaluation", customers appraise products, or elements of products (for example, a vehicle's engine sound). The way in which people appraise products in real life can differ to the way they appraise products in structured evaluations. It is important for manufacturers that the results of product appraisals within structured evaluations, match or come as close to real-life as possible. Therefore within structured evaluations, product representation, context and interactivity are of the utmost importance.
Objectives
The objectives of the project are to:
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Develop consistent methods for capturing "perception-forming processes" in different environments (e.g. in real vehicles on-road, vehicle simulator, listening room)
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To compare "perception-forming processes" accross different levels of reality
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To provide guidelines for the representation of the real world in simulated environments, understanding how simple the real world representation can be made for appropriate decision making
Expected outcomes
The project will go beyond simply capturing the opinions of people (in the form of votes or scores). Consistent methods will be developed for capturing the actual "perception-forming" processes in different environments, e.g. in real vehicles, on road, in a full vehicle simulator, or in a listening room.
Increasing the level of understanding about how subjective assessments are carried out (by customers and experts), both on-road and in real vehicles will be valuable in improving consistency in current attribute assessment processes, as well as validating approaches developed for other levels of reality.
A comparison of perception-forming processes accross different levels of reality will contribute to a greater understanding of the optimum methodologies for automotive design This will require the further development of both models and also the novel analysis and data capture techniques proposed in previous research. APPRAISE will also explore the use of different auralisation methods (e.g. headphone playback, wave field synthesis or ambisonics) for presenting sound to assessors. This aspect of the research will take advantage of a new facility for sound assessment to be built in Warwick's Digital Laboratory.
Benefits
In the short term, APPRAISE wil benefit the automotive and sound engineering industries through improved products and processes. In the longer term, both the wider community and environment will benefit through the quicker and more effective introduction of new Intelligent and Eco-Friendly vehicle technology.
