Comfort and tying your shoelaces
From research it is suggested that there are two different types of
comfort, psychological and physical. "Comfort is a pleasant state of
psychological and physical harmony between a human being and his or her environment"
(Slater, 1985). Psychological is where you are comfortable with the surrounding
mentally, you feel reassured and safe; it plays off your memories, trust and
relationships. This type of comfort takes a long time to create and is studied
a lot with nurse where they try to create an environment for a patient to feel
comfortable. Comfort with nurses is described ‘that comfort is the overall role
that nurses have to focus on and to achieve this they have to first identify
patients’ perceptions of their needs’ (Orlando, 1961), it is also the process
to developing a close relationship with the patient which can result in healing
and growth (Hall, 1964). A study by Elizabeth Tutton (2004) outlined how
nurses perceive comfort and how they create comfort for their
patients, the study showed that comfort was an individual process in
which every one is different, and the staff needed to find out the
patients wants and wishes to fulfill them. It was found that the patients felt
more comfortable when the nurses had more positive attributes such as;
kindness, gentleness, goodness and friendliness. It was found that comfort was
also created when the nurse knows the patient, their background, likes and
dislikes and simple facts about them, as this created a sense of normality.
Physical comfort is identified where you feel comfortable from and
physical product or service. This type of comfort is taken for granted as
people only feel comfortable after discomfort (Farrell, 2009) and this comfort
is only temporary and last a short amount of time. I understand that this
comfort only last for the length of the kinetic movement such as rubbing a soft
surface, once you have stopped rubbing the soft surface the comfortable
sensation stops. Physical comfort is integrated in industrial design with
projects such as creating a chair that is comfortable, rather than an
uncomfortable chair. “There are at least three design
issues that need consideration in striving for comfort; Firstly, the exact
cause of discomfort or comfort is unknown; there is no
model available that describes the cause of comfort. Secondly, every individual has
his or her own meaning of comfort, as it is a subjective phenomenon. Thridly, the
comfort design process is not described and the approach is
unknown" (Vink, 2005).
When considering comfort, Looze et al. (2003) described that there were
three manifestations for considering: "Discomfort: the
participant experiences discomfort because of physical disturbances in the
environment. No discomfort: the participant is not aware of discomfort or
comfort or there is no discomfort. Comfort: the participant experiences
noticeably more comfort than expected and feels comfortable." Looze et al, (2003:p 990) .The model explains
the different factors that interact on resulting the design of the object,
creating different manifestations; it described that you not only had to feel
physically comfortable but other factors acted influence this, such as
temperature, humidity, noise, state of the person, history and smell. "The
history of our comfort experiences determines our expectations of a product
based on what we are used to" (Looze et al. 2003: p991) this links to the
physiological aspects of comfort and person memories. A study by Zhang et al. (1996)
found that the absence of discomfort did not result in comfort. It showed that
discomfort was associated with pain and if that was taken away then nothing was
experienced, while comfort is related to the sense of well being and the pleasure
the chair gives; discomfort highlights more physical aspects, such as
pain, ache, hurting while comfort shows more of the mental aspects such as
feeling happy, relaxed, safe, calm and restful.
My interpretation with regard to these two different two types of
comfort is the concept of time; as it takes a long time to create a safe,
relaxed, comfortable environment to generate the sensation of mental comfort.
Where as, physical comfort only lasts a few seconds, and when you stop moving, smelling or listening to the experience of physical comfort,
you then lose the focus on comfort and will then only consider comfort again
when the action or product is deemed uncomfortable. The factor of time then
becomes a big issue of making the experiment, as you have to allow for time to
create both mental and physical comfort.
A theory was devised; it was important
to have two parts of the experience. As humans, we take the physical aspects of
comfort for granted and because of this it is not practical to create physical
comfort only to try to prevent physical discomfort. Preventing physical
discomfort will act as a catalyst to creating physiological comfort. Making a
comfortable environment using memories, safety, relaxation and positive
attributes will create physiological comfort.
I wanted to make an experience to represent the actions of putting on
and tying your shoes in a comfortable way. I feel that comfort is simple but
meaningful, it’s a feel that you don't want to over power as then I feel it loses
its meaning, so I wanted an experience that doesn’t have too many gadgets.
Initially I created an
environment to prevent physical discomfort by using soft fabrics and textures
such as fur, satin and having soft padding in the shoe. I enlarged the action
of tying your shoes to emphasize what is being done; I still wanted to keep it
in the feet region. I feel that is a main part of the act of putting on your
shoes is the bending down so there is that connection will use your whole body.
I wanted this part of my experience to
show a large amount of comfort, as I feel I there is more of a physical comfort
rather then a mental comfort to tying up your shoes (and mostly touch) In
making this I used soft materials, two soft pieces of padding were sewn together
that can be laced up, this covered the whole leg making the experience more
enlarged. These soft materials prevented an uncomfortable experience physically
and also manipulated the actions on tying up your shoes. Also lined the bottom
with a soft fur fabric to create physical comfort and it also created a warm
environment inside that helped to make it more psychologically comfortable.
To create physiological
comfort I will look at smell, the visual look of the experience and the way I
act when presenting it. Vink (2005) reported that even though we are mostly not
aware of the effect that smell has on us with comfort it actually influences
our experiences. Therefore smell can trigger past memories and if the memory is
comforting it can stimulate the feeling. Personally the smell of lavender is
comforting so I used the aroma on the object to help stimulate the
physiological sense of comfort. Another physiological comfort factor is the
visual look of the object; this plays on the idea on memory and history with
other objects. I felt an object looks comfortable with the shapes the form
creates, soft, fluid, rounded shapes and also the colours used. As I was trying
to keep the model simple and not over powering I made the whole model pure
white and used soft fluid fabrics to make it so it looks comfortable before
sitting on it and using it. Nurses fundamentally use comfort as part of their
professional work, I wanted to try and use their type of personality of make
the experience more mentally comfortable being; friendly, gentle and kind. Time
is also an important factor of comfort, for this the experiment was kept short
and simple as I felt that the user would start loosing the comfortable feeling
if it kept going for too long, so it only lasted about two minutes.
Hall L.E. (1964) Nursing – What is it? The Canadian Nurse 60, 150– 155.
James J Farrell. (2009). Comfort. The Clergy
Journal, 85(3), 46.
Looze, M.P. de, Kuijt-evers,
L.F.M and Dieen, J.H. van (2003), sitting comfort and discomfort and the
relationships with objective measures. Ergonomics,
46:985-997
Orlando I. (1961) The Dynamic Nurse–Patient Relationship: Function,
Process and Principles. G P Putnam’s Sons, New York.
Slater, K. (1985) Human Comfort, Springfield IL: Charles
C. Thomas.
Tutton, E., & Seers, K. (2004). Comfort on a ward for older people. Journal
of Advanced Nursing, 46(4), 380-389.
doi:10.1111/j.1365-2648.2004.03005.x
Vink, P. (2005). Comfort and design:
Principles and good practice. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Zhang, L. Halander, M.G.
Drury, C.G. (1996). Identifying factors of comfort and discomfort in sitting. Human Factors, 38(3): 377-389
