Development and Evaluation of a Full-size Experimental Device to Determine Sliding Door Usability by Elderly People

Abstract

The weight of sliding doors used in residences, especially sliding glass doors, has increased in recent years due to the need to provide thermal insulation, security and design. As a result, it has become important to consider easy of use, especially by elderly people, at the time of product planning. In this context, basic operations characteristics that elderly people show must be figured out first and foremost. As one of example for operability, JIS defines the opening and closing forces, which are equivalent to the maximum static friction force of a door; however, it does not specify the relationship with the weight of a door. A full-size experimental device was developed where the opening and closing forces were controlled independently from the weight of a door. In the experiment, three door weights, 20, 40 and 60 kgf, and two opening and closing forces, 5 and 10 N, were used. The sensory evaluation for opening and closing operations of the sliding door were measured with ten subjects including five elderly males and five elderly females. The force on an operating part applied by subjects when opening and closing the door was also measured in each experiment. The test results clarified basic knowledge for improving the operability of sliding doors : the evaluation score of ease of opening and closing the door decreased and the applied force on the operating part increased as the weight of the door increased, although the opening and closing forces remained the same.