With the current strain on the healthcare service, wearable technology presents a solution. However, there is a lack of adoption from user groups due to a focus on clinical and financial factors. This study explores the implementation of positive design in medicine, outlining contributing factors to positive emotional experiences. Using a qualitative methodology in the form of semi-structured interviews with users and experts, a construct was defined consisting of five key psychological needs, including control, stimulation, competence, social factors, and purpose & growth.

The paper explores the integration of emotional design elements in the development of medical devices to enhance user acceptance and adherence. It emphasizes the importance of a user-centered approach, acknowledging both functional and emotional needs. The study compares two cases within healthcare design, highlighting the impact of emotional design on users' perception of medical devices. Despite the different stages of development in the two cases, both employed a higher level of refflective design, aiming to create a lasting impact on users' identity using the products.

This study addresses the challenges of the ageing population, focusing on enhancing the life of caregivers and the elderly. It proposes a multifaceted solution that allows dependents to live close to their carers, enabling oversight without a need for constant presence. The paper employs empirical studies to ensure a deep understanding of caregiving, capturing the breadth and depth of challenges. Presenting a novel design solution, Hygge, combines physical and system design with technology integration. This prioritises accessibility, cost, maintenance, and adaptability for diverse needs.

Human-centred approaches within the design cycle are crucial to enhance usability and inclusivity of products. However, the qualitative nature of traditional human factors evaluation can create bottle necks, prompting the need for more data driven methods. A framework for data-driven human factors is presented, looking to integrate mixed-method approaches. Case studies illustrate its usage in real-world scenarios and challenges are summarised, calling for robust data collection methods, balancing of mixed methods, a need for explainable systems, and interdisciplinary expertise.

The UK construction industry is an important aspect of the UK economy; however, it is struggling to keep pace with wider economic growth and if it does not change it will not be able to keep up with demand. There is a gap between academia and practice, and little understanding of how to successfully innovate within the industry. Following a workshop with 25 construction industry professionals on the barriers to innovation in the construction industry, key themes were developed through thematic analysis including regulation, fragmentation and constant change.

People living with tetraplegia experience a significant loss of sensory and motor function; with the severity depending on their injury level and completeness. To complete tasks independently, people with tetraplegia often rely on assistive devices. To avoid upper extremity pain, designs should not require applications of force near the limits of the user's physical strength. This paper establishes a 2D biomechanical model using static equilibrium and joint torque limits to predict multidirectional strength patterns in the sagittal plane for people with C5 to C7 tetraplegia in a seated position. The results from the biomechanical model highlight the areas and directions of high strength. The strength patterns observed in this paper provide an opportunity for designers to evaluate strength requirements and take advantage of areas and directions of high strength and ensure that users are not required to apply force near their physical limit. In doing this, designs such as assistive devices can be developed that enable users with a reduction in strength to operate them independently.

Contemporary digital in ear hearing aids are of significant importance for social participation of users with hearing impairments. Through the advancement of technology, extreme miniaturisation of these devices has been achieved. However, by no means all people who could benefit from a hearing aid actually use one. Cormack and Fortnum state that the majority (80%) of adults aged 55–74 years who would benefit from a hearing aid, do not use them. This is in line with Arnold and Makenzie who estimate a gap of a factor of 5 between people who would benefit from the use of a hearing aid than actually do acquire and use one. Even according to the statistics from the Federal Guild of Hearing Aid Acousticians in Germany, only 3.7 million use a hearing aid out of 5.4 million who have an induced hearing loss. This article explores the design space of fashionable analogue contemporary hearing aids.

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is one of the most prevalent cardiac diseases in the world. How might we design patient journeys improving quality of life using wearable cardiac devices for continuous out of hospital monitoring and support? Most of the studies to date have emphasised the technical aspects of implementing such devices with less focus on human factors. As such, remote cardiac monitoring appears to be burdened by poor patient adherence. This research study proposed a journey map based on Roger's technology adoption model to understand the challenges faced by AF patients and non/asymptomatic patients in using wearable devices to monitor their health. Data from semi-structured interviews conducted in Denmark with 12 participants aged 24 to 65 years was used. Interview results show that citizens prefer tracking heart activity only in conjunction with other measures such as steps or sleep and do not feel motivated to track their heart activity on a daily basis. Patients view wearables as a valuable tool to check if their health is all right, although apprehension that devices can cause unnecessary worry can lead to their rejection. Finally, recommendations for the design of patient journeys when using wearables were made.

Inclusive musical instruments benefit from incorporating wearable interfaces into digital musical instrument design, creating opportunities for bodily felt experiences and movement-based interactions. In this article, we discuss the evolution of our inclusive design approach behind the design and performance practices of three wearable musical instruments. By focusing on the embodied, somatic, and tacit dimensions of movement-based musical interaction, we evaluate these case studies, combining the third and first-person perspectives. The design and implementation of the wearable sensing, utilizing the additive manufacturing techniques, are discussed for each instrument and its performer in specific cases of musical expression. This article further discusses how our approach integrates music performance as a crucial step into design and evaluation, utilizing these performance practices and such collaborative settings for improved diversity and inclusion. Finally, we examine how our design approach evolves from user-centered design to more participatory practices, offering people with diverse abilities a shared music performance space.

Designing accessible and inclusive buildings is essential if they are to provide enjoyable and inspiring experiences for all their occupants. Research revealed that many architectural design professionals perceive a lack of awareness of the aspects to consider when designing to be a limiting factor in the uptake of Inclusive Design. By involving expert stakeholders this study provides evidence for the demand to create an Inclusive Design Canvas, a strategic design template offering an educational springboard for building industry professionals to embed Inclusive Design in the design process.

This research focuses on evaluating a user interface (UI) for an autonomous vehicle (AV) with the goal to determine the most suitable layout for persons with visual acuity loss. The testing procedure includes a Wizard of Oz AV for simulating an automated ride. Several participants are included in the study and the visual impairments are simulated by specially designed glasses. The conclusions help to determine the optimal graphic design of the UI that can be independently used by persons with blurred vision. The results can be applied to improve the inclusiveness and ergonomics of vehicle UIs.

Occupational therapists modify mass-produced and universally-designed assistive technologies (ATs) to fulfill the specific needs of people with disabilities. We interviewed ten occupational therapists with experience in modifying ATs in order to understand adaptation processes. Our findings reveal the reasoning behind adaptation, common ATs that require adaptation, as well as the collaborative nature of adaptation. We propose a new framework called Adaptable Universal Design (AUD) that blends Universal Design with the need to adapt ATs in order to fulfill unique and specific user needs.

Design is increasingly influenced by digitalisation yet differs largely across domains. We present synergies between the works of UX designers and data scientists. We can utilise personas to represent users and their behaviours, or synthetic populations to represent agent groups. Despite sharing characteristics, their synergies have not been explored so far. We propose a workflow and test it in the urban mobility context to link a synthetic population of Paris with a set of contextual personas. This builds the basis for an integrated approach for designing urban mobility across fields.

The world is ageing, and this change will strongly impact the design of products, services and environments. Notwithstanding the proliferation of research initiatives, guidelines, policies and regulations, there is still a significant gap and lack of a uniformed strategy to guide engineers, designers, and architects to design inclusive environments. This article explores and summarizes through a review of international regulations and standards, the requirements that design practitioners need to consider when designing accessible, inclusive, smart, age-friendly environments. With this explorative study, we reviewed documentation and developed a comprehensive ontology comprised of people and design related criteria aiming to support the design of inclusive, smart and accessible buildings. The ontology was created by interpreting the criteria through semantics used in peoplecentered design approaches, where people's needs and design requirements are two fundamental phases for designing inclusively.

The results are intended to enable researchers and practitioners to better identify clusters of accessibility and inclusion criteria to facilitate the study and the design of accessible, inclusive, smart, age-friendly environments.

Design has the potential to include or exclude people, depending on how user needs are translated into products. Design exclusion has been vast in design for health care. Medication packaging design is a common example. It does a good job of protecting the product but can result in creating difficulties when used, especially for those who are older. Research in this area lacks an inclusive and user-centered approach because potential users have been studied outside of their context of living and with methods that limit participation. The aim of this study was to explore the combined use of solicited diaries and photography to engage and include older users in gathering data and reflecting on their day-to-day experiences of using multiple medications and the medication packaging. Our findings show key learnings of using this combined method, as well as related methodological challenges, and provide recommendations to tackle these challenges. The use of solicited diaries with photographs taken by participants is deemed to be relevant in interdisciplinary fields of research and practice, where designers and other professionals aim to better understand the reality of older people and create meaning in their experiences of self-care.

When designing assistive devices for children with disabilities, designers mostly consider technical and functional aspects and overlook factors that affect their usage from children’s perspective. Therefore, in most cases, assistive devices do not fully meet the needs of the children and may create a negative effect on children’s well-being. To explore the opinion’s of children using 3D printed hand prosthetics in Country-Xx, individual generative sessions were conducted with four children with limb deficiency. Generative tools are used to engage children and encourage them to express themselves in relation to prosthesis use. The main aim was to investigate how children provide design relevant information that may help designers to achieve improved assistive devices that support children’s physical, emotional and social wellbeing. Children’s feedback related to prosthetic usage categorized under two topics; expectations of children for prosthesis use and children’s priority expectation for the prosthesis. The findings are argued to be useful and usable by NGOs, product designers and design researchers who work with children with disabilities.

This exploratory research paper discusses the importance of experiential qualities in products that have accessible and assistive uses. The focus is on products that may have an ambiguous user experience. Concepts of multisensory user experience and accessibility are presented as an introduction to the topic.

The paper builds on the findings of a preliminary user study that was conducted in a joint multi-national and cross-industrial project that was externally funded. In the study, users’ experiences of an accessible means of transport, an elevator prototype with an interactive media surface, were explored. The study comprised a thinking aloud task and a design game.

The demonstrated colours, lights and their movements created various kinds of associations among the participating users. The participants also ideated about the product’s alternative applications, some of which concerned accessibility, while others extended beyond it.

The findings show that adding experiential product qualities enhances the user experience in terms of various associations and applications that extend beyond accessibility and the original use.

With an ever-increasing body of primary school children and the degradation of mental health among young people, the development of a high self-esteem at a primary school level has been recognised as a huge driving force towards the wellbeing of the next generation. Although the poor mental health of young people in their teenage years is widely talked about and addressed, it is often missed that this stems from a much younger age. The people most likely to suffer with a lower self-esteem at a young age are those with a learning differences, weather mild, diagnosed or undiagnosed. This paper will explore how emerging cognitive differences, and positive social interaction can help steer a child’s self-development away from problems later in life such as anxiety and depression. Using these findings, a physical classroom-based game was conceived, designed and tested on the end users in the classroom environment.

The design of inclusive paediatric mobility (IPM) interventions, such as children's wheelchairs, are entangled with technological, health and social considerations. As narratives around childhood, disability and mobility shift and transform, these entanglements evolve. In order to optimise the experience of childhood mobility, IPM designers must understand and respond to such changes and channel children's own requirements, desires and 'dreams' into the design process; this can be achieved by utilising a child-centred design approach. This paper identifies meaningful child-centred IPM design insights and opportunities through the interdisciplinary analysis of 130 dream wheelchair designs by disabled children, aged 4 to 17 years. A novel interdisciplinary and child-centred design analysis framework is developed to dissect, categorise and code the topics and features expressed through visuals and written descriptions in each of the children's dream wheelchair designs. Children's mobility narratives, desires and requirements are elicited and trending topics are discussed. It is proposed that valuing children's voices in the IPM design process could alter both the process of designing IPM interventions as well as the product outcomes.

Since the mid-20th century, assessing the performance of the built environment was recognized as an instrument to improve the efficiency in the design and construction processes. However, it appears difficult to identify assessment tools that currently include a holistic assessment of inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility criteria for the built environments.

A systematic literature review was performed to define the state of the art of assessment tools in the domain of civil engineering and architectural design, and to identify gaps in the criteria of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility.

The review highlighted three fundamental aspects. First, how the binomial relationship between regulations and assessment tools is not mutually exclusive. Second, how the process of assessing buildings is shifting towards mixed evaluation methods. Third, how assessment tools have been developed with a perceivable evolutionary latency from when standards were released.

With this work, we produced a state-of-the-art overview about inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA) in the built environment, to inform the development of tools that will foster the design of future inclusive environments.