In the summer of 2004 I took part in an ergonomic consultancy project for MG Rover. In my team were my ergonomics tutor Sarah Davies, fellow student Richard Carr and myself.

The task set was to find out how a proposed new sports car interior faired against it's current production model. Also we were to find out what improvements needed to be made on top of the prototype.

To achieve this, MG Rover leant us an existing car and a full size interior buck. We used the university's "CU Adamlab" building for the task, which is a dedicated lab for industry and commercial projects. We set about finding sports car drivers and compiling a survey, and we also learnt how to use anthropometric measuring equipment.

The general process of the task was to measure each driver, then get them to sit in the existing car and answer questions on it's comfort, usability and feeling of "sportiness", then they were asked to simulate a driving experience by watching a video (filmed during a car journey) projected in front of the car, all the while sat in the car, simulating changing gear, operating the pedals and the steering wheel. The users were then questioned again on different aspects of the experience. Finally, we asked the drivers to repeat the whole process again, but this time in the prototype buck.

We surveyed about 30 drivers in all, ranging from 1st to 99th percentile stature, male and female, and many dimensions in between. The results were then collated and a presentation of the findings were given to the directors in charge of the project. Most of our recommendations were taken on board, although there were some concerns about the cost implications of some of our recommendations. Unfortunately, so far, the project has been suspended as the company ran into money problems, but now the Nanjing Automobile (Group) Corporation has taken over, so it's possible the project may be revived at some point.

Unfortunately, due to the secrecy of the project, I am not able to show any photos.