On long journeys, the seat is subject to a wide range of requirements. The seat can be a work chair, a recliner and a sofa bed. It is used for longer than 10 hours and the same seats are used by people of very different sizes. Aircraft seats are subject to very demanding strength and fire safety requirements.
The problem with redesign is measuring the benefit of the design; did the design achieve a substantial improvement in the product, improve the competitiveness of the product and achieve an economic benefit?
Finnair's business class seat design project involved designing two new models and comparing them to a standard product using the paired comparison method. We used test persons of different sizes and genders. Their ratings were categorized by height, weight and gender. In this case, model A (pictured left) proved to be significantly better than the other two and was chosen as the base solution for the final product.
