NS
HAPPY TRAIN INTERIOR
Netherlands Railways NS is the largest railway company in The Netherlands. With over a million commuters on daily basis, they need to perform every day to keep clients satisfied. Their ambition is to make users score at least 9 out of 10 on a regular train ride. For being able to do so, Mark van Hagen developed a special model for analyzing the
customer journey of NS. Based on this model, NS created a design challenge, inviting the most creative minds in the field to maximize the user satisfaction. Together with NS the impact of active furniture design in real life situations was tested.
In 1947, scientists discovered physical stimulation influences the development of the brain. Providing the right types of stimulation to naturalize enclosures is called 'Environmental Enrichment'. One of the five elements you need to activate when you want to achieve enrichment is ‘motor’ or ‘movement’.
There are several studies showing there is a direct relation between body movements and emotions. Based on these studies a series of furniture objects was created making people more active while traveling by train.
Our experiment is find out if - by adding ‘movement’ to the train interior - people become more satisfied.
TESTING
When the Enriched Office in 2016 at Schiphol Airport Amsterdam, was designed, a constructive testing method was developed with Professor Jenny Morton from the University of Cambridge to understand emotions in a real-life situation. This method was partly used to execute this research on how a train interior influences people their mood while traveling by train.
Based on the most recent findings in neuro-science, we know environmental enrichment consists of the activation of five different informational pathways:
1. Motor: all information from our muscles
2. Visual: visual information related to
orientation in space and the perception of moving elements
3. Cognitive: including actions that requires skills and / or decisions
4. Somatosensory: all information detected via skin, muscles and joints
5. Circadian rhythms: information from light, nutrition and / or social interaction and alignment with inner biological clock
For NS we focussed on adding the element ‘motor’ into the train. The hypothesis was that by adding movement, people feel
happier during the train ride. We think movement may contribute to positive emotions because movement is one of the five elements of enrichment. Besides, Aalto University (2013) published a study on how full body movement relates to happiness.
BAMBATA
The train is a social environment. Whether you like it or not, you share the space with other people. And despite most people
seeming to want to exclude themselves from others by being on their smartphones, 43% of the people who travel in a regular train mentioned that they are very open for a conversation (4 or 5 on a scale from 1-5). Perhaps unwillingness is not the reason people are not talking much in trains nowadays. It may be people need a little
icebreaker to start conversations.
The Bambata water sofa was made to fit exactly on top of the existing bench inside the train. People could not see there was water inside the sofa, so they could not expect interaction with the seat. The Bambata water sofa made more people be very open for a conversation. The amount increased from 43% on a regular first class seat to 64% of the people being very open for a conversation sitting on the Bambata water sofa.
Interestingly, frequent travelers were less open for conversations using a regular seat. Their average score of openness was 3,3 on a scale from 1 to 5 compared to 4 when sitting on the Bambata. This mades frequent travelers the highest impact group on being open for conversations triggered by water sofas. Women are the second most triggered target group: they are slightly more open for conversations than men. Women’s average
openness increases to 3.9 when sitting on a water sofa compared to 3.5 on a regular seat.
When people sat on the Bambata 18% gets excited or lively compared to 10% sitting on a regular first class seat. Water sofas can contribute to people their openness and mood in semi public spaces.
MACARON
All the collected data from 166 people who sat on the Macaron cushion during the train ride was analyzed. When people sat on a regular seat without an active Macaron cushion, 37% mentioned they were in a positive mood (cheerful, happy, excited or lively). When people sat on the active Macaron cushion, the amount of people having a positive mood increased: 53% of the people mentioned they felt positive emotions on a Macaron. Particularly interesting is looking at the data of men, people between the age of 25 and 49 and frequent travelers.
At the start of the test 31% of the men were happy. When they sat on a Macaron moving cushion, 60% of all men reported being happy, cheerful, lively or excited. Although both men and women became happier on an active seat, the impact active sitting has on men seems larger.
Among frequent travelers 38% was cheerful, happy, lively or excited on a regular seat compared to 59% on an active Macaron cushion.
The largest difference between sitting on a normal seat and an active Macaron cushion was with people from both sexes of the age group 25 to 49. Only 22% of this group was cheerful, happy, lively or excited on a regular seat compared to 56% sitting on an active cushion.
Despite to what group you belong to, we see with our data sitting on active Macaron cushions increases the amount of people being cheerful, lively, happy or excited. When you take into account most people sit longer than 7 hours a day, active seating could have a huge impact on people their daily lives.
FLOATILE
The unique element of a train interior, is the train itself is a moving space. To enhance these movements and make it into a quality, we came up with the Floatile water disk. It is placed on the floor and the water in it requires you to balance. Together with the movements of the train, you can get the sensation of
surfing a wave. With such a spot, standing becomes playful.
The Floatile is probably the most outstanding product from the active furniture series we tested in the train. We could see that people’s emotions went from calm, relaxed and carefree when they stand on a normal floor to the most extreme moods. There was an increase of people who feel more positive. On a regular floor 8% of the people is lively or excited. Standing on a Floatile 23% of the
people are lively or excited.
When the Floatile was designed, the expectation was that especially youngsters below the age of 25 would appreciate this design. Looking at the data it worked out differently.
The Floatile is a round disk with a bright ring around it. The youngest age group (below 25) does become more lively and excited, but also significantly more nervous than older age groups. Although the exact reason for this variation is uncertain, it could potentially be related to the sensation of being exposed. The design makes you feel exposed compared to standing on a normal floor. It could be younger people feel less comfortable about being on the spot in a semi-public space and that the design of the Floatile
enhances this feeling. To engage the youngest age group, it would be good to do a second experiment with Floatile spots which blend in with the regular floor design.
MORE INFO
download the report (E ( (EN (English
video (Dutch)
CREDITS
Illustration: Giovanni Pastori
Commissioners: (NS) Jessica Sauren, Evelien ten Elsen,
Mark van Hagen, Joost van der Made
Commissioners: (NS) Jessica Sauren, Evelien ten Elsen,
Mark van Hagen, Joost van der Made
Design Team: Govert Flint, Jantien Roozenburg,
Aliki van der Kruijs, Govert Geerts & Kim Haagen
Aliki van der Kruijs, Govert Geerts & Kim Haagen
Inquiry: Elizabeth Nelson with Govert Flint
Data collection: Meet4Research | Hans-Peter Voss
Data Analysis: Klaas Nagel
Photos by: Maaike Poelen & Afdeling Beeld