Costs and Benefits of Comfort Products for Professional Use

In the previous chapters, design processes and evaluations of products related to comfort and discomfort are described. This chapter focuses on the costs and benefits of these products. The general perception is that the implementation of improvements is hampered by a lack of consciousness of costs and benefits and by a deficiency of data (Jong 2002). Several models are available to study cost and benefits (Stanton and Baber 2003; Beune 2001; Koningsveld and Thé 2000; Koningsveld 2003; Koningsveld et al. 2002). In our research and consultancy projects our clients needed a rather simple model, which will be described in this chapter.