Exploring factors influencing visual comfort in an aircraft cabin

Visual stimulus might influence comfort of passengers in air travel. For a better understanding of the visual comfort, it is crucial to identify the constructs of the visual stimulus in the cabin and the contributions of different elements. A two-step approach was adopted in this study where in the first step, several creative sessions were executed for exploring the effect of different elements in the cabin regarding their impact on visual comfort. To inspire the participants, all creative sessions were held in a Boeing 737 cabin where participants were free to explore and had an immersive experience. All identified elements in the creative session were collected and grouped to different categories, that is use as input for the second step, which is an online survey investigating a possible hierarchy of the impact of those categories of elements on visual comfort. Eight were summarized and the three most influential categories were lighting, colour and the space arrangement. These were significantly different from other categories, namely the seat shape, the pattern, the windows, accessories and existence of advertisements. Regarding the gender and the age of the participants, we did not find significant differences regarding the preferences.