Exploring user experience of transport modes through the multiple dimensions of psychological comfort

The notion of user experience in HCI and other domains includes the emotional experience beyond instrumental aspects such as usability, usefulness or price. In the transport sector, a passenger-centric approach that integrates a focus on user experience has similarly emerged with a view to guiding and enriching design. Adopting this approach, we surveyed 502 frequent commuters evaluate 24 previously identified sources of psychological Comfort/Discomfort [1] [2] across eight modes of transport, with the goal of identifying their specificity in terms of passengers’ experience. Dimensions such as social norms and social representations associated appear overwhelmingly considered to be of little importance, while expectations regarding an instrumental dimension like Time control, Accessibility and Safety remain high overall, alongside other dimensions specific to the various modes. In particular, we identified a set of 16 sources from broad categories like Social Interaction, Space, aesthetics and Sensory Ambiences, Safety feeling, Control, Multiple activity and Attention load, as dimensions of psychological comfort experienced by commuters in relation to the transport modes they use. These dimensions could offer pathways into how to improve public transport systems and infrastructure for soft modes, by indicating the sources of discomfort and comfort, and how to encourage modal shift from private car to shared or soft modes. We conclude on limits and perspectives.