Understanding Customer Needs in Designing Automotive Center Consoles
This paper presents results of two studies conducted to determine customer needs in designing future center console designs for automotive products. The first study involved an observational survey of 150 vehicles in three parking lots to determine what items people store in their vehicles and the item locations. The data obtained from the survey provided a list of all the stored items, their distribution and their locations inside the vehicle. Papers, bottles, cups, books, bags and sunglasses were most frequently observed items in the vehicles. The second study was conducted to determine storage preferences of items in the center console. A foam-core center console with velcro surfaces was built inside a minivan. Thirty-six drivers were asked to select items that they would carry most often in their vehicles and place them on the center console surfaces. The resulting layouts of stored items were summarized. The summary data were provided to four teams of industrial design and engineering students to create design concepts for future automotive center consoles.