Toyota’s Program for Universal Design in Vehicle Development
Kenji Misugi, Hitoshi Kanamori, Noboru Koyama, Bunji Atsumi, Toyota Motor Corporation, 1, TOYOTA-CHO, TOYOTA-CITY, AICHI 471-8572, JAPAN, jp,
jp, jp, jp
帕杰罗(进口)Kazuhiko Nakamoto, Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing Europe (TMEM), Technical Centre B, Hoge Wei 33B, B-1930 Zaventem, BELGIUM, kazuhiko.nakamoto@toyota-europe Summary
Toyota is promoting universal design development as a part of the development of vehicles that are good for a diverse customer base, and conducting vehicle development along the two axes described by the below indices. One is the ergo index (the physical aspect of people), which is an evaluative index that quantifies ease of use in terms of the characteristics of people's functional and physiological aspects. The other is situational suitability index (the mental aspect of people), which is an index of the extent to which user needs have been satisfied. This index shows how far user expectations and demands are met in a variety of scenes with vehicles. Toyota's conceptual approach and utilization of this original evaluative index for universal design will be illustrated using the example of development of the new model Raum.
林肯suv mkxKeywords: Universal Design, Toyota, Raum, Ergo-index INTRODUCTION
lx350Universal design has been garnering more attention in society in recent years. It is defined as providing a service or designing an object or location in such a way that it can be easily used by many people, regardless of physical characteristics such as gender age, or disability. The concept of universal design stems from the increased participation of disabled people in society, and the expanding elderly population. Other reasons include the advent of an age in which companies are required to develop products focusing on user-friendliness in an environment where products have more advanced and diverse functions. This article will explore the universal design, design development, and product details of the Raum, which was introduced to the market in May 2003.
RAUM UNIVERSAL DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
Universal design principle
Universal design was first propounded in 1990 by Dr.Ronald L. Mace, a professor at North Carolina University., He defined seven principles of universal design. When there are many people working on the same development project, it is best to use a keyword that is easy to remember to help maintain focus on the overall design. Thus, in the development of the Raum, project members came
up with the short Japanese slogan
奥迪a4l2012款图片an-raku-tan, which was easy to remember and use by all members. The words composing an-raku-tan mean peace of mind, pleasure, and singularity, but also suggest the ideas of soothing, safe, affordable, easy, fun, beautiful, elemental, and simple (see Figure 1.)
Figure 1. Raum Keywords
Raum Universal design concepts
The universal design considered for the Raum is illustrated in Figure 2. as a conceptual diagram. The horizontal axis represents a scale of human perception that starts with (1) basic safety requirements of the vehicle, (2) easy to use, (3) easy to understand, and (4) comfort and delight. Th
e vertical axis covers (1) height and build, (2) people with restricted moving ability, including pregnant women, people in poor health, in addition to situations where one is carrying packages in both hands, an experience everyone has at some point, and (3) elderly people, children and people requiring a care provider. Knowledge regarding basic safety, and the dimensions and build of the human body, accumulated by researchers in the field of ergonomics for over thirty years has been incorporated in the bottom left portion of the diagram. The ergo-index and situational suitability index (to be described later) implemented in the Raum has made it possible to index a wider variety of people and the level of ease of use on the right-hand side of the perception scale. Feelings and perception are difficult to express in indices for design. The Raum design aims for the top right side of the diagram, that is, a design that
is to make mobility fun and exciting, while retaining excellent and active user-friendliness.
Toyota Universal design indices
The two indices, the ergo-index and situational suitability, mentioned in the previous paragraph were established at Toyota as a unique criterion and method for the
purpose of objectively and subjectively evaluating the level of delight and user-friendliness achieved. (see Figure 3.) Based on these two indices, an objective evaluation of hard aspects (ergonomic performance) and soft aspects (delight in usage situations) has become possible, which can also be applied to future model development.
Figure 2. Universal Design Goal of Raum
Figure 3. Indices of Toyota Universal Design
Upon introducing the Raum to the market, the two indices were announced as universal design indices, which would be applied to all future vehicle model development at Toyota.
The ergo-index* evaluates and scores 180 items in six areas based on ergonomics, taking into account differences in build and physical ability. Thus, vehicles can be graded with a comprehensive
score on their performance with respect to ergonomics, making it possible to compare vehicles, as well as set target values for performance to
be achieved during development. (*Toyota coined the term “ergo-index” as a combination of the words “ergonomics” and “index.”)(see Figure 4.)
Situational suitability quantifies the degree to which items in vehicle development fulfill user needs for a vehicle (usage situations, usage methods). This index evaluates the performance of developed items in thirty situations taken from an internal database, which correspond to how the development vehicle may be used. For instance, items developed for the Raum were evaluated in terms of their effect in the situation where a person straps a child in a child seat in the back seat, then moves to the driver seat. (see Figure 5, Table 1)
Figure 4. Ergo-index; Example of evaluation items (Left), Comparison of results (Right)
Figure 5. Approach of Situational suitability
Table1: Example of scene
RAUM UNIVERSAL DESIGN DEVELOPMENT MATHOD
Spiral-up development based on user dialogue
This section will discuss the development method used in designing the Raum. Design development in the past has been typically carried out based on collected information. However, in the case of the Raum, a “user dialogue-type” development method was employed. This method seeks to create
more user-friendly vehicles by listening to users and reflecting feedback in the development process. To this end, developers visit sites frequented by users in order to learn how they actually use their vehicles. The opinions and expectations of users are divined through user participation in numerous discussions to confirm the impact of development ideas so that the vehicle can become more user-friendly. More specifically, a prototype is first created based on knowledge and assumptions from the design and engineering departments, which is used in hearings with users where the designers observe results. The level of development thus advances after numerous revisions and improvements followed by repeated evaluation. As such, this method is called spiral-up development based on user dialogue. While developing the Raum, over 500 user dialogues were carried out with numerous people. Confirmations with users mainly focused on functional parts (such as meter audio and heater control) related to driving and ease of ingress/egress.
Recording user dialogues
In order to maintain an environment as normal as possible during user dialogues, the camera was kept hidden as much as possible, and friends and family of the user were encouraged to ride as fellow passengers. All dialogues were recorded on VTR. Afterwards, the videos were analyzed to observe the effect of the prototypes. Figure 6 shows the confirmation of a door handle height and a
prototype heater control and audio. The top row of photos shown in Figure 7 are taken from a vehicle in which a reproduced door with a built-in pillar is used to confirm where elderly people grab for support to enter and exit the vehicle, and the ingress/egress method of children. In the bottom row of photos, a styling mock-up under development is used in the confirmation of ingress by a person in a wheelchair and a person with a guide dog. Given that guide dogs always ride with their masters, more leg space was created in the back of the Raum using a tumble seat, allowing both dog and master to relax.
Exterior design
As shown in Figure 8, the overall exterior of the vehicle is a compact, 2-box style measuring 4,045 (l) × 1,690 (w) × 1,535 (h) mm. The height of the Raum was set considering the height restrictions of multilevel parking garages. The cabin dimensions allow for elbow room comparable to that in a large sedan, and the mounting point distance of the front and rear seats is 965 mm. The door handles are set 920 mm from
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