Assessment of seam puckering by subjective Thurston's method of paired comparisons and the rank order method

Purpose In the present study, two subjective approaches including Thurston's method of paired comparisons and the rank order method were employed to evaluate seam puckering. Design/methodology/approach To this end, test samples were produced using five different sewing thread tension levels and three stitch lengths. The degree of seam puckering was assessed according to the AATCC 88B subjective evaluation standard, as well as through Thurston's paired comparison and rank order methods. Findings Findings revealed that all three subjective methods confirmed the increase in seam puckering severity with higher thread tension and longer stitch length. Furthermore, the correlation coefficients between the AATCC 88B standard and the two applied methods exceeded 0.96, indicating strong consistency. These results demonstrate that Thurston's paired comparison and the rank order methods can be reliably employed for seam puckering evaluation. Originality/value Although various objective methods have been proposed in previous research to assess seam puckering, subjective approaches such as Thurston's paired-comparison method and rank-order evaluation have not been employed for this purpose before.