Comfort experience in everyday life events

Abstract

This paper explores what constitutes a comfortable experience in daily events, based on descriptive accounts of such experiences submitted by 35 participants. The results outline nine themes, eight of which are similar to the themes of passenger comfort in the flight context. Those are ‘peace of mind’, ‘pleasure’, ‘physical wellbeing’, ‘proxemics’, ‘satisfaction’, ‘social’, ‘association’ and ‘aesthetics’. It is assumed that these are universal elements of comfort and could potentially inspire design of everyday products or services that bring about comfortable experiences to users. However, the specific characteristics of a situation are expected to dictate the concerns of users relevant to those themes and consequently the comfort experience associated with the design. In addition, the results revealed the importance of the theme ‘esteem’ for comfort in daily situations, which is justified by a focus on self and a mental state directed at enjoyment in daily activities.