Factors affecting airport apron workers’ preference on cooling vests

• Proper cooling vests may promote the health and job performance of workers.
• Usability issues affect workers’ preference on cooling vest.
• The design of cooling vest should be improved prior to wide applications.

The aim of the current study is to evaluate airport apron worker’s preferences using two types of cooling vests to identify the factor affecting the preferences for one vest over another. A total of 112 airport apron (43), construction (36), horticultural and cleaning workers (33) participated in two rounds of surveys to evaluate their perceptions of the cooling vests across 18 attributes. For the 17 subjective attributes (except “dislike–like”), the cluster analysis revealed four categories of subjective attributes, while the factor analysis extracted four underlying factors: thermal comfort, fabric hand feel, usability, and tactile comfort. The results of the analysis of variance indicated that airport apron workers were less satisfied with the cooling vests than the other outdoor workers. Multiple linear regression analysis on the resultant preference “dislike–like” of airport apron workers (the dependent variable) and the four underlying factors (the independent variables). The results revealed that usability significantly determined the preference of airport apron workers on cooling vests (adjusted R2 = 0.84, p < 0.001). Given the underlying factor affecting workers’ preference on cooling vests, the current study provides a practical guidance to optimize the designs of personal cooling vests in view of usability issues for airport apron workers.