Enrica Fubini

Foot Digitalization to Enhance Shoe Comfort

E R G O N O M I C S I N D E S I G N • S P R I N G 2 0 0 8 C op yr ig ht 2 00 8 by H um an F ac to rs a nd E rg on om ic s So ci et y, In c. A ll ri gh ts r es er ve d. D O I 1 0. 15 18 /1 06 48 04 08 X 31 34 44 he Italian footwear industry is prestigious from both an economic and a fashion perspective, as evidenced by decades of renowned haute-couture and prêt-à-porter fashion brands. Until 2002, Italy was the world’s largest footwear exporter, but the emergence of industries in the Far East – above all, China – has changed the statistics. In 2005, the Italian footwear industry consisted of about 7,000 companies with more than 100,000 employees. Italy is now the fourth-largest exporter (298 million pair/year, vs. China’s 502 billion pair/ year, Hong Kong’s 743 million pair/year, and Vietnam’s 393 million pair/year). The commercial value of Italian footwear exports amounts to approximately 6 billion Euros (Osservatorio Calzaturiero Veronese, 2005). As a result of this shift in footware production centers to Far Eastern countries, although it has preserved its important position in the worldwide context, Italy has begun to develop new research and development initiatives aimed at enhancing the quality of its footwear products in terms of materials, design, and usability. In this article, we describe a recent measurement campaign that was performed in Italy aimed at gathering and analyzing psychological and psychophysiological variables in order to improve the fit of shoes and, therefore, user satisfaction.

Workload Evaluation of Subjects Carrying out Accessibility and Operability Tests in Underwater Environment for Microgravity Simulation

As weightlessness is not completely reproducible on Earth, usability evaluation of space systems is often simulated through tests in aquatic environment. A Neutral Buoyancy Facility test campaign was organized in a special pool to simulate Extra-Vehicular Activities on the Columbus module of the future International Space Station with the aim of assessing various aspects of crew interface design. To understand how stressful this environment could be, we developed an evaluation methodology of the workload correlated to visibility, accessibility and operability tests.