In today’s increasingly competitive market environment, new packaging must meet more requirements than before to meet customer expectations. The packaging must meet not only functional and aesthetic requirements but also ergonomic requirements to ensure satisfying user experience. An important issue in ergonomic design is the identification of factors that lead to user comfort and discomfort. The packaging is a product that undergoes manual manipulation and given the various forms of packaging and it's opening and closing systems, they require using different grip types and movements. Using packaging that is not well designed can cause intense physical exertion and frustration for users. The subject of this paper is a review of methodologies for assessing the ergonomics of packaging products. Methodologies for evaluating the ergonomic characteristics of packaging provide a proposal for structuring the investigation. Also, it gives a proposal for the proper prioritization of a packaging problem that should be identified as the most dangerous risks for physical injuries or for causing stressful situations to users. First, it is necessary to gain a clear insight into how the users handle the packaging in order to create knowledge and a clear idea of what is useful or harmful in the existing packaging design and to find the potential for its improvement. There are various methods for studying, analyzing and evaluating user experience while using a packaging. Combining such methods with knowledge of the anatomical structure of the body and how it reacts to the load enables the creation of efficient and ergonomically designed packaging. This paper will present methodologies and guidelines for assessing and improving the ergonomic qualities of packaging. The aim of this paper is to define the key factors and most relevant methodologies for conducting successful ergonomic research.

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The embossing process in graphic industry utilizes custom made dies to create raised or lowered permanent relief patterns according to the design. It can be combined with other print finishing embellishments, such as foil stamping or pearlescent coating, but the simplest version of this process, the blind embossing is also a very effective technique to create a distinguished and sophisticated look. The quality control of embossing features was done only visually for a long time, but in the recent years it became an important target for graphic instrument manufacturers focusing on the embossing depth, as one of the most important parameters for high quality processing. This analysis was aiming to investigate the applicability of a simple flatbed scanner and the developed image processing algorithm for embossing quality evaluation. The results of detailed visual assessment of all scanned paper samples and the obtained values of average greyscale difference (shadow-based contrast), showed that single-level embossed samples can be realistically digitalized using a simple flatbed scanner, as an image acquisition equipment. Additionally, the proposed image feature, the shadow-based contrast had increasing tendency by increasing the applied compression force, in general, suggesting that it has a potential as an objective measure for the deformation rate in the embossing quality evaluation. The obtained results gathered for different combinations of observed parameters (paper grade, basis weight, type of test elements on the embossing dies) with the optimal compression forces, implied that the shadow-based contrast could be used as a reference parameter to ensure adequate visibility of embossed elements by defining the minimum value of needed contrast.

The folding process is one of the most commonly used print finishing operations in graphical production. Therefore, surface damages on coated papers and paperboards, which are frequently appearing during this process, can have significant negative economic and environmental impacts. To reduce the adverse effects, fold crack resistance has become an active field of research. In the last decades, there were several computer-aided visual assessment methods introduced for fold-crack evaluation. These techniques were based on similar concepts of digital image analysis to quantitatively characterise the surface damage, but they had differences in utilisation as well as in the used image feature. In this study, fold crack distribution has been introduced as a new digital image feature for quality assessment. Fold crack distribution can be determined as a measure of crack scattering over the folding line. In this paper descriptive statistics, mean value, standard deviation and coefficient of variance have been used for qualitative characterisation of surface damage. The obtained results for mean value demonstrated increasing tendency by increasing the basis weight and had slightly lower value for samples in machine than cross direction. These results confirm the basic assumptions that on thicker substrates (i.e. on samples with higher basis weight) the cracks are larger, longer or grouped and that the folding process generates higher surface destruction is cross than machine direction. In the case of standard deviation, results suggest that in a case of varying mean values, crack distribution should be defined via coefficient of variation. Based on this analysis, the proposed approach to the calculation of crack distribution can serve as a new image characteristic for the qualitative measurement of the fold-crack resistance of coated papers.