A user-centric design approach for smart product-service systems using virtual reality: A case study

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) has been applied in many different sectors, including manufacturing and engineering industries as well as in the healthcare industry where VR-equipped health products can provide better prevention, rehabilitation, and palliative care in a user-friendly environment. The smart product-service system (PSS) aims to achieve better user experience and higher user satisfaction. Limited research has been conducted on the benefits of leveraging advanced VR systems in a sustainable smart PSS via analysis of human factors. Moreover, existing VR research lacks the systematic methods that fully consider user performance and experience in a smart manner. This study aims to outline a conceptual approach for user-centric development of value-added smart PSSs based on VR, and to develop a case study with a smart VR rowing machine to illustrate the proposed approach and to verify its feasibility and effectiveness. After the VR platform is created, user-generated and VR system-generated data are collected and processed. The value-added services of VR-assisted user experience and real-time data feedback can be achieved. The results of this ergonomic experiment were determined by jointly considering the user-generated and VR system-generated data. They showed that the developed smart VR rowing machine significantly enhanced the user experience. The value-added services of VR-assisted user experience and real-time data feedback have been achieved. Theoretically, the proposed conceptual framework for a VR-assisted, user-centric, smart PSS provides an approach of specific data-driven and value-added services compared to traditional methods since it simultaneously considers user-generated and VR system-generated data. In the practical smart PSS design of VR products, this paper contributes to the design methodology of VR products and value-added services to obtain more accurate and objective user experience. It is hoped that this study can offer insightful guidance to enterprises that are involved in the process of creating the value-added design and service based on VR.