Statistical Design for innovation in virtual reality

In this work an original design strategy for product innovation is presented. This strategy is based on a continuous innovation process and takes advantages of both emotional design methodologies and participative design tools in Virtual Reality (VR). It combines techniques for user need identification and virtual reality ex-periments to simulate user-product interaction. This original combination of tech-niques allows the early evaluation of the new product concepts’ quality which is essential for the success of the innovation. To show the main phases of this strategy, three case studies are briefly introduced. In the first case study, concerning the railway coach interiors design, the impor-tance of both the identification of user needs and the evaluation session in VR is highlighted. In the second case study, concerning the railway seat design, the techniques used to generate new concepts and to choose the optimal one among them are briefly illustrated. Finally, in the third case study, concerning the innova-tion of a Postural Seat System, the continuous innovation iterative cycle, which is essential in the statistical design for innovation strategy, is described starting from the designer sketches.