Virtual reality: A design tool for enhanced consideration of usability “validation elements”

The purpose of this paper is to highlight a validation action of virtual reality simulation to integrating health and safety right from design stage.We demonstrate first how simulations using virtual reality techniques help to narrow the area of uncertainty between two viewpoints: that of the work equipment “designer”, who focuses on production constraints with respect to a prescribed task, and that of the end-user, who has to satisfy production constraints in relation to the resources at his disposal (personal, technical and organisational).We then introduce the method retained for validating these simulations. This focuses on the possibility of reproducing a reference activity through simulation. We distinguish two types of simulation validity: internal validity, which is based on the simulator’s capacity to reproduce a task (a succession of simple operations), and external validity, which refers to the possibility of simulating activities comparable to those observed in real situations. The results presented concern mainly internal validity.