User Driven Innovation: Incorporating Disabled Lead Users in Early Phase Product Development

How can disabled non-designers play a leading role in product development? As part of early phase product ideation, designers often rely on methods (Pahl & Beitz, 1996, Chapter 4). These methods help designers develop appropriate solutions to design problems. However, ideation processes may also involve non-designers. These could be end-users, managers, domain experts or other stakeholders. A very specific form of user involvement is through lead users. Lead users can be identified as: 1) being at the leading edge of an important market trend, and experiencing needs that will later be experienced by many users in that market, and 2) anticipating relatively high benefits from obtaining a solution to their needs. This motivates them to participate. They are often a limited group of persons with specialized skills or experiences (Urban & von Hippel, 1988). In this paper discuss the involvement of disabled lead users in early product development. We will focus on generative methods used for the creation of a wearable mobility device. The device consists, in part, of a 3D, time-of-flight DepthSense camera by Softkinetic, combined with a wearable tactile display developed by Elitac, two technology manufacturers. In addition to reflecting on our approach, we also introduce relevant research themes involving disabled lead users

Evaluation of a wearable computer system for telemonitoring in a critical environment

This paper reports on the evaluation of a wearable computer system designed for use in a critical environment, namely the intensive care unit of a hospital. The nature of the application raised ethical issues for testing in a clinical environment and standard evaluation techniques could not easily be applied. The system was therefore evaluated by clinicians in a multi-tasking environment with a simulated set of patient scenarios. Measures of suitability and wearability were applied. The results were encouraging and the system was deemed suitable for further evaluation in the clinical setting, subject to ethical approval

Acceptance of Commercially Available Wearable Activity Trackers Among Adults Aged Over 50 and With Chronic Illness: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation

Please cite as: Mercer K, Giangregorio L, Schneider E, Chilana P, Li M, Grindrod K Acceptance of Commercially Available Wearable Activity Trackers Among Adults Aged Over 50 and With Chronic Illness: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation JMIR Mhealth Uhealth 2016;4(1):e7 DOI: 10.2196/mhealth.4225 PMID: 26818775 PMCID: 4749845Background: Physical inactivity and sedentary behavior increase the risk of chronic illness and death. The newest generation of “wearable” activity trackers offers potential as a multifaceted intervention to help people become more active. Objective: To examine the usability and usefulness of wearable activity trackers for older adults living with chronic illness. Methods: We recruited a purposive sample of 32 participants over the age of 50, who had been previously diagnosed with a chronic illness, including vascular disease, diabetes, arthritis, and osteoporosis. Participants were between 52 and 84 years of age (mean 64); among the study participants, 23 (72%) were women and the mean body mass index was 31 kg/m2 . Participants tested 5 trackers, including a simple pedometer (Sportline or Mio) followed by 4 wearable activity trackers (Fitbit Zip, Misfit Shine, Jawbone Up 24, and Withings Pulse) in random order. Selected devices represented the range of wearable products and features available on the Canadian market in 2014. Participants wore each device for at least 3 days and evaluated it using a questionnaire developed from the Technology Acceptance Model. We used focus groups to explore participant experiences and a thematic analysis approach to data collection and analysis. Results: Our study resulted in 4 themes: (1) adoption within a comfort zone; (2) self-awareness and goal setting; (3) purposes of data tracking; and (4) future of wearable activity trackers as health care devices. Prior to enrolling, few participants were aware of wearable activity trackers. Most also had been asked by a physician to exercise more and cited this as a motivation for testing the devices. None of the participants planned to purchase the simple pedometer after the study, citing poor accuracy and data loss, whereas 73% (N=32) planned to purchase a wearable activity tracker. Preferences varied but 50% felt they would buy a Fitbit and 42% felt they would buy a Misfit, Jawbone, or Withings. The simple pedometer had a mean acceptance score of 56/95 compared with 63 for the Withings, 65 for the Misfit and Jawbone, and 68 for the Fitbit. To improve usability, older users may benefit from devices that have better compatibility with personal computers or less-expensive Android mobile phones and tablets, and have comprehensive paper-based user manuals and apps that interpret user data. Conclusions: For older adults living with chronic illness, wearable activity trackers are perceived as useful and acceptable. New users may need support to both set up the device and learn how to interpret their data

Foot Pressure Wearable Sensors for Freezing of Gait Detection in Parkinson’s Disease

Freezing of Gait (FoG) is a common symptom in Parkinson's Disease (PD) occurring with significant variability and severity and is associated with increased risk of falls. FoG detection in everyday life is not trivial, particularly in patients manifesting the symptom only in specific conditions. Various wearable devices have been proposed to detect PD symptoms, primarily based on inertial sensors. We here report the results of the validation of a novel system based on a pair of pressure insoles equipped with a 3D accelerometer to detect FoG episodes. Twenty PD patients attended a motor assessment protocol organized into eight multiple video recorded sessions, both in clinical and ecological settings and both in the ON and OFF state. We compared the FoG episodes detected using the processed data gathered from the insoles with those tagged by a clinician on video recordings. The algorithm correctly detected 90% of the episodes. The false positive rate was 6% and the false negative rate 4%. The algorithm reliably detects freezing of gait in clinical settings while performing ecological tasks. This result is promising for freezing of gait detection in everyday life via wearable instrumented insoles that can be integrated into a more complex system for comprehensive motor symptom monitoring in PD

Workplace performance monitoring: analysing the combination of physiological and environmental sensory inputs

The intent of this study was to investigate the combination of body physiological monitoring and the monitoring of the physical workplace as well as measuring worker/workplace performance through a questionnaire and activity log. We believed that these three data streams can be analyzed to reveal a strong correlation among them. The introduction of body physiological monitoring represents a new initiative in our quest for understanding the complex man-environment relationship

An experimental study to test a 3D laser Scanner for body measurement and 3D virtual garment design in Fashion education

Artists, scientists, anthropometrists and tailors have accurately measured the human body with traditional tools, such as tape measures, callipers and accumulated visceral experience for centuries. Due to the progressive acceleration in the quality of 3D graphics technology and computer processing power, many product industries that traditionally use 3D software as a 3D design and prototyping tool, are also successfully measuring, customizing and re-engineering the products they design and manufacture through the integrated use of 3D Laser scanning technology. In the changing world of Fashion, 3D graphics technology has at last emerged from the shadows of academic research projects and hit the high streets. 3D body measurement surveys, using mobile 3D laser scanners, have mapped the true shape and body sizes of the UK and USA populations. Virtual fit and 3D visualisation technology has expanded out from the Internet, into the physical world, and is now available for shoppers to visualise made to measure garments. The acceptance of three-dimensional body-scanning and 3D digital design tools into our everyday experiences can be seen as a significant move toward encouraging and developing new, innovative learning and teaching methods in Art & Design education. This paper describes an experimental study into the application of 3D laser scanner technology for use in learning and teaching of undergraduate and postgraduate fashion and textiles design; clothing manufacture, fashion marketing, merchandising and promotion. The study focuses on testing the 3D scanning equipment with a student sample group. The use of the sample group attempts to simulate a range of body shapes, categorised by the traditional standard size chart specification method, currently used to design new fashion collections for high street clothing retail and UK fashion education. The methods applied for evaluation and testing of the 3D laser scanner for body measurement are described, and the results of the initial user experiences are discussed. The study seeks to establish the overall efficiency of 3D scanning technology and investigates the potential value for integration of the 3D Laser scanner with 3D clothing design and construction software. Conclusions provide recommendations on the potential effectiveness of connecting the results of the 3D body measurement study to the fashion curriculu

Middleware-Driven Intelligent Glove for Industrial Applications

It is estimated that by the year 2020, 700 million wearable technology devices will be sold worldwide. One of the reasons is the industries’ need to increase their productivity. Some of the tools welcomed by industries are handheld devices such as tablets, PDAs and mobile phones. However, handheld devices are not ideal for industrial applications because they often subject users to fatigue during their long working hours. A viable solution to this problem is wearable devices. The advantage of wearable devices is that they become part of the user. Hence, they subject the user to less fatigue, thereby increasing their productivity. This chapter presents the development of an intelligent glove, which is designed to control actuators in an industrial environment. This system utilizes RTI connext data distributed service middleware to facilitate communication over WiFi. Our experiments show very promising results with maximum power consumption of 310 mW and latency as low as 23 ms. These results make the proposed system a perfect fit for most industrial applications