Supporting Inclusive Design of Mobile Devices with a Context Model

The aim of inclusive product design is to successfully integrate a broad range of diverse human factors in the product development process with the intention of making products accessible to and usable by the largest possible group of users. However, the main barriers for adopting inclusive product design include technical complexity, lack of time, lack of knowledge and techniques, and lack of guidelines. Although manufacturers of consumer products are nowadays more likely to invest efforts in user studies, consumer products in general only nominally fulfill, if at all, the accessibility requirements of as many users as they potentially could. The main reason is that any user-centered design prototyping or testing aiming to incorporate real user input, is often done at a rather late stage of the product development process. Thus, the more progressed a product design has evolved - the more time-consuming and costly it will be to alter the design. This is increasingly the case for contemporary mobile devices such as mobile phones or remote controls

Chapter Supporting Inclusive Design of Mobile Devices with a Context Model

Embedded system

A Wearable Computing Prototype for Supporting Training Activities in Automotive Production

Abstract. This paper presents the results of the wearable computing prototype supporting training- and qualification activities at the SKODA production facilities in Czech Republic. The emerged prototype is based upon the first of the 2 main “Variant Production Showcases ” (training and assembly-line) which are to be implemented in the WearIT@work project (EC IP 004216). As an introduction, the authors of this paper investigate current training processes at Skoda, and derive the potential benefits and risks of applying wearable computing technology. Accordingly, the approach of creating the wearable prototypes, via usability experiments at the Skoda production site, is explained in detail. As a preliminary result, the first functional prototypes, including a task recognition prototype, based upon the components of the European Wearable Computing Platform, are described. The paper is rounded up by providing a short outlook regarding the second envisaged test case, which is focussed upon selected assembly line operations of blue collar workers

Chapter Supporting Inclusive Design of Mobile Devices with a Context Model

Embedded system