Is that the kind of customer testing like the one Northern did with seats? They put on a roadshow of different seat types in a mobile mock up, and asked the public to vote on the most comfortable. Then they didn't choose the one which was far and away the winning option.
For good reason - they had screwed up. The LEAN would not fit in the planned layout with acceptable legroom as the back is too thick. They did the best they could do, which is the thinnest backed seat in the test but with a cushion similar to the LEAN (indeed, less hard a base than the LEAN - its base is really quite hard, as any Class 196 traveller can tell you!).
They didn't admit that error, but it doesn't make it any less so. Next time you're on a 195/331 have a think what the legroom in the airline seats would be like were the seat backs about 2" thicker and why that would be unworkable. The only way to get them in would have been having near enough no tables.
It is a big error in these tests not to have several rows of seats and thus include the legroom in what you are testing. The superthick cushions of e.g. the refurbished 3 car 158s might be comfortable, but they reduce legroom to the point that anyone over 6' is going to struggle, and that is overridingly bad. Good legroom is even beneficial for shorter people as they can do stuff like putting suitcases by their knees. (Interestingly the 205 bus in London which connects some stations on the north side as the "son of Stationlink" has wider legroom specified upstairs than other London buses for that precise reason).
