This thesis explores the use of heart rate as a biofeedback game mechanic control in combination with physical movement in a Virtual reality (VR) environment using either teleportation, or a VR treadmill. A literature review, surveys, expert interviews, semi-structured interviews and a VR prototype were created. The prototype was iterated three times, and tested using the A-B method with 57 participants. The Polar H10 was used for the heart rate monitoring of the participants. The readings of the heart rate values were received via a script in Python in order to extract raw heart rate data from the participant in real time and sent to the prototype in Unity. It includes different interaction functionalities, a teleportation system, and a grabbing system from the SteamVR asset pack, a walk function using the Omnideck from Omnifinity, and includes assets from Unity for the graphics and sound. From the results and analysis of the data from the prototype, it can be interpreted that using some sort of movement in VR enhances the participants engagement and immersiveness in the environment. While heart rate biofeedback control enhances the VR experience, adding physical walking using treadmills improves it even more.

The contact patterns among individuals can significantly affect the progress of an infectious outbreak within a population. Gathering data about these interaction and mixing patterns is essential to assess computational modeling of infectious diseases. Various self-report approaches have been designed in different studies to collect data about contact rates and patterns. Recent advances in sensing technology provide researchers with a bilateral automated data collection devices to facilitate contact gathering overcoming the disadvantages of previous approaches. In this study, a novel unilateral wearable sensing architecture has been proposed that overcome the limitations of the bi-lateral sensing. Our unilateral wearable sensing system gather contact data using hybrid sensor arrays embedded in wearable shirt. A smartphone application has been used to transfer the collected sensors data to the cloud and apply deep learning model to estimate the number of human contacts and the results are stored in the cloud database. The deep learning model has been developed on the hand labelled data over multiple experiments. This model has been tested and evaluated, and these results were reported in the study. Sensitivity analysis has been performed to choose the most suitable image resolution and format for the model to estimate contacts and to analyze the model's consumption of computer resources.

The rapidly increasing popularity in wearables in combination with countries such as Sweden moving towards a cashless society creates a market for wearable payment devices. NFC technology is already used in traditional payment cards to provide contactless payment and is now also being used in other forms such as rings or bracelets to provide smart payment devices. However, despite NFC technology being commonly used consumers are not familiar with using the technology in alternative forms or connecting them with their smartphones. Something that Fidesmo, a Swedish company that provides a platform for wearable payment devices, has observed amongst their users. Fidesmo found that users faced so many problems attempting to link their payment card to their wearable on their own they no longer recommend users attempt this. This thesis aims to investigate this problem and present insights that can be utilized to create an effective onboarding experience. The onboarding experience aims to guide users through the following: connecting wearables to smartphones, linking a payment card to the wearable through the smartphone and how to use the wearable to make payment at a payment terminal. Through research into the field, traditional user research workshops and co-design workshops exploring the existing onboarding experience within Fidesmo’s smartphone application the following insights could be derived: Visualize Information, Thorough Instructions, Building Confidence, Celebrating Success, Locate "Connection Points", Designing the Physical and Relate to the Familiar. These insights are strongly indicated by the results and some are supported by previous research. A high fidelity prototype was designed using these insights to demonstrate how to apply them. During user tests the design proposed showed significant improvements compared to Fidesmo’s current onboarding experience. / Det snabbt växande intresset för wearables i kombination med att länder såsom Sverige går mot ett kontantlöst samhälle har skapat en marknad för betallösningar i formen av wearables. NFC teknologi används redan i traditionella betalkort för funktionen kontaktlös betalning och används nu även i andra former såsom ringar eller armband för att tillhandahålla smarta betalningsenheter. Men trots den breda användingen av NFC teknologi så tycks konsumenter inte vara bekanta med att använda tekniken i alternativa former eller att utföra kopplingen med sina smartphones. Detta är något som Fidesmo, ett svenskt företag som erbjuder en plattform för wearable betalningsenheter, upptäckt bland sina användare. Fidesmo fann att sina användare stötte på så pass många problem när de försökte länka sitt betalkort till sin wearable själva att detta inte längre rekommenderas. Detta examensarbete avser att undersöka detta problem och presentera insikter som är ämnade för att skapa en effektiv onboarding upplevelse. Onboarding upplevelsen syftar på att guida användare genom följande moment: koppla wearables till smartphones, länka betalkort till wearables genom smartphones och hur man ska använda denna wearable för att betala vid en kortterminal. Genom forskning kring området, traditionella användarforsknings workshops och co-design workshops som utforskade den befintliga onboarding upplevelsen i Fidesmos smartphone applikation kunde följande insikter anskaffas: Visualicera Information, Nogranna Instruktioner, Bygga Självförtroende, Fira Framgång, Indikera “Anslutningspunkter”, Designa det Fysiska, och Relatera till det Familjära. Dessa Insikter är starkt indikerade av resultatet från denna studie och vissa stöds av tidigare forskning. En high fidelity prototyp var därefter designad baserat på insikterna för att demonstrera hur de kunde appliceras. Under användartester visade den föreslagna designen tecken på en tydlig förbättring i jämförelse med Fidesmos nuvarande onboarding upplevelse.

Fear is an intrinsic human emotion, which produces with variable intensity a bodily reaction as a response to a stimuli. It is considered one of the basic human emotions, and it is universal of all animal species. Despite its subjective quality, fear has gained a rather negativistic stereotype that this research intends to debate and readdress, proposing that “negative fear” is part of an evolutionary transition cultivated by social and cultural constructs. This thesis will analyze the context in which fear operates, employing experience design methodologies and design research to reevaluate the role of fear in the contemporary settings of our societies to prove its connection to imagination, transhumanism and the production of empathy. After a brief historical perspective to situate this thesis in the contemporary framework of experience design, this research will investigate fear as prolific tool for the production of imagination, derived from its aesthetic connection to wonder and pleasure. This particular connection between fear to wonder was investigated among others by Charles Darwin, who also promoted the functionality of fear as the key to animal survival. The complex mechanism in which fear engages us will lead to the production of design prototypes that look at the animal kingdom and several other species’ talents in the detection and implementation of fear as a tool to survive. Here, the potential of our species to further evolve through the use of design will open a discussion on transhumanism and the future of humanity. The last section speculates a counterfactual conditional statement of how our humanity would operate, if emotional identities were reevaluated. In particular, the emotion of fear will be reevaluated for its unpleasant characteristics, from the bodily sensations to the mental postliminary conditions, to understand why certain human behaviors are still exercised, when the physiological effects are universally acknowledged as distasteful. By interpreting the physiological impact of fear, this research will continue its argument towards empathy, questioning what it truly means to ‘stand in someone’s else shoes’, specifically when fear is practiced. Empathy, as a pilaster in the mission statement of many contemporary disciplines, has surfaced in this research as viral phenomenon, which little has to do with truly ‘empathizing’. Here, it investigates how empathy can be experienced when fear is in play: if sharing fear as the bodily experience of someone else can lead to the production of authentic empathy, then humans have a chance to reevaluate its application in the contemporary global topics of war and diplomacy, domestic and public violence, or bullying to name a few. This research ultimately establishes a new perspective on the role of emotions in our societies, and creates a connection between design and the experience of intangibles, producing a view of the intrinsic systems of our being as ones deemed of value in the ambitious evolution of our species. / <p>The full thesis contains copyrighted material which has been removed in the published version.</p>

Information and communication technologies hope to revolutionize the healthcare industry with innovative and affordable solutions with a focus on pervasive care. Wearable sensors products can provide monitoring in a natural environment with a constant stream of information, enriching healthcare practices and enabling better pervasive care. Wearable sensor technologies could monitor patients' mobility, gait, tremor, daily activity and other health indicators in real time that could allow for simple, non-invasive, tracking of spine care that may lead to increased patient engagement, integration, feedback, post-surgery analysis, monitoring of patient's condition, patient's data extraction and analysis and possibly aiding in better diagnosis, intervention, adherence to treatment for the betterment of quality of care. This research focuses on the assessment of technology adoption potential of medical devices particular to tracking the mobility of patients of neurosurgery and orthopedics. Wearable medical devices that track the mobility of patients after spinal procedures could help surgeons in providing post-operative care, analysis of treatment outcomes and patient mobility. The assessment of those devices by physicians is a complex process associated with various perspectives and criteria. Therefore, the objective of this research is to assess the potential for technology adoption of those wearable medical devices through development of a hierarchical decision-making model (HDM) that incorporates the relevant perspectives and criteria encompassing the needs of hospital neurological surgery and orthopedics departments. The proposed research builds on an existing body of knowledge researched through literature review and background of the field and expands the health technology assessment field by implementation of a holistic, comprehensive and multi-perspective approach to technology assessment in wearable sensor products adoption for pervasive care in neurosurgery and orthopedics. The Hierarchical Decision Model (HDM) approach is used to break the problem down into hierarchical levels and then calculate the alternatives using pairwise comparison scales and a judgment quantification technique. Inconsistencies, disagreement, sensitivity and scenario analysis are performed as well. HDM research software is created with Ruby and R to facilitate the computation of some of these important model parameters to higher precision than is available in current statistical analysis software packages or extensions targeted for decision making. Patient perspective dominates as the main perspective for the technology adoption potential of wearable devices for pervasive care in neurosurgery and orthopedics, followed by technical and financial perspectives. Valedo, a wearable device aimed to relieve back pain through exercises, motivation and mobility tracking, received the highest ranking for adoption potential, while other devices also received high relative scores. The framework could serve as a supplementary technology assessment tool and could be tested in other settings: private, small clinic etc. with the experts and special needs of physicians in particular healthcare departments.

Submitted by Anderson do Nascimento Ricci (anderson.ricci@fgv.br) on 2018-07-24T20:22:24Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Wearable Technology_Master Thesis_Lukas Eidenhammer.pdf: 3238959 bytes, checksum: 48469a90e97896be26649f580d7bffbf (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Janete de Oliveira Feitosa (janete.feitosa@fgv.br) on 2018-07-25T12:37:57Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Wearable Technology_Master Thesis_Lukas Eidenhammer.pdf: 3238959 bytes, checksum: 48469a90e97896be26649f580d7bffbf (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-27T19:25:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Wearable Technology_Master Thesis_Lukas Eidenhammer.pdf: 3238959 bytes, checksum: 48469a90e97896be26649f580d7bffbf (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-06-20 / Purpose - The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the attitude of Generation Y towards Wearable Technology (WT). The investigated gadgets of WT are Fitness trackers, Smart watches, Smart glasses and Smart Clothing. The research investigates the interest of individuals into WT sponsored by the employer and their data-sharing attitude. Design/Methodology - The thesis uses a quantitative, online survey among individuals, which are 18 – 36 years old. The survey is threefold. First, individuals are questioned towards their tracking behavior and ownership of WT. Second, the likelihood to purchase WT is compared with the likelihood to request sponsored WT by an employer. Third, the data-sharing attitude of individuals is investigated. The survey was distributed via Social media and the data gathered via Qualtrics. The analysis was conducted with the statistics program SPSS. Findings - First, the proportion of individuals tracking data and the data tracked confirm the interest of individuals to receive personal insights through WT. Second, the likelihood to request WT when sponsored by an employer shows a statistically significant increase for Smart watches, but decrease for Fitness trackers. For owners of WT, the likelihood increased for all four WTs. Third, the data-sharing attitude of individuals highlighted, that Generation Y does not trust the employer’s objective. Research limitations – The main limitation is that the research is not representative for the whole Generation Y. There exist several definitions of Generation Y and only one definition is applied for this thesis. In addition, the sample was not geographically limited to specific countries. In addition, the survey covers only a limited number of gadgets. Based on the responses for a single gadget, one derives with implications for the whole category of Wearable Technology. In addition, the topic of data sharing is covered by general questions about WT and not retrieved for each of the four devices. Practical implications – By focusing on the individuals’ perspective the thesis provides insight into the attitude of the Generation Y towards the innovative technology of Wearables. The research creates awareness about the employer-employee relationship and the topics of trust and sharing attitude. Employers and companies are interested into the data tracked by individuals and can derive with insights on how to integrate WT at the workplace. Originality – The study focuses on the expectations and concerns of individuals towards WT, in comparison to the numerous studies highlighting the technological features. / Objetivo - O objectivo desta tese é investigar a atitude da geração Y face à wearable technology (WT) . Os aparelhos investigados de WT são fitness trackers, smart watches, smart glasses e smart clothing. A pesquisa investiga o interesse dos indivíduos interessados em WT patricionados pela entidade empregadora e a sua atitude de partilha de dados. Metodologia - A tese recorre a um questionário quantitativo online testado com indivíduos entre os 18 e 36 anos. O questionário é tripartido. Primeiro, indivíduos foram questionados perante o comportamento registado e posse de WT. Seguidamente, a probabilidade de adquirir WT foi comparada com a probabilidade de pedir WT patrocinados por um empregador. Por fim, a terceira parte investiga os comportamentos de partilha de dados. O questionário foi distribuído online através de redes sociais e a data recolhida foi analisada via Qualtrics. A análise foi interpretada através do programa SPSS. Resultados - Primeiro, a proporção de indivíduos a registarem os seus dados e os dados recolhidos confiram o interesse dos indivíduos em receber informações pessoais através de WT. Em segundo lugar, a probabilidade de requisitar WT quando particionados por um empregador mostra um aumento estatisticamente significativo para Smart watches, no entanto um decréscimo para Fitness trackers. Para os donos de WT a probabilidade aumentou para os quatro tipos de WT. Por último, a atitude perante partilha de dados por parte de indivíduos sublinhou que a Geração Y não confia nos objectivos do empregador. Limitações – A principal limitação desta dissertação prende – se com o fato de a pesquisa não ser representativa de toda a Geração Y. Existem várias definições da Geração Y e uma dessas foi selecionada para o desenvolvimento desta tese. Adicionalmente, a amostra não se encontrava geograficamente limitada a países específicos. Igualmente, apenas um número limitado de equipamentos foi considerado no questionário desenvolvido. Baseadas nas respostas para um aparelho único, é possível derivar as implicações para toda a categoria de WT. Em adição, o tópico de partilha de dados é coberto por questões gerais sobre WT e não para cada um dos quatro aparelhos. Aplicabilidade do trabalho - Através do foco na perspetiva dos indivíduos, esta tese fornece uma compreensão alargada do comportamento da Geração Y relativamente às inovações tecnológicas dos wearables. Esta dissertação foca – se na relação empregador – empregado e nos tópicos de confiança e de partilha. Nomeadamente, os empregadores e as empresas encontram – se interessados relativamente aos dados rastreados pelos indivíduos que poderão fornecer uma melhor e mais completa perspetiva de como integrar os WT no local de trabalho. Originalidade – Este estudo foca-se nas expectativas e preocupações dos indivíduos em comparação aos inúmeros estudos salientando características tecnológicas.

This thesis explores a concept by Sonvox AB called VoiceUp. The concept is that of a mobile application that communicates with a wearable voice measuring device and visualizes voice information in a way that helps singers. Sonvox current main product is VoxLog—a system for long-term voice monitoring, mostly used for research purposes. Sonvox believes that their voice analysis technology could be relevant to a larger audience. The main goal for the thesis is to explore if a wearable voice measuring device could be relevant to singers, and in what ways. To do this, a needs analysis was conducted where song teachers and singers were interviewed. In order to draw statistical conclusions about the occurrence of needs, a survey was conducted where people with an interest for singing were the targeted respondents. Based on the result from the needs analysis, the VoiceUp concept was refined, resulting in an idea of a product that measures and visualizes how much the user sings and speaks with the aim to increase singers motivation to practice singing more regularly. Based on theory related to self-tracking, a design proving the concept was created, resulting in a mockup and a simple prototype. The mockup and the prototype can together be seen as one example of how self-tracking technology could be relevant to singers.

Graphene is a two-dimensional carbon based material with unique properties, such as electrical and thermal conductivity. When a textile is coated with graphene, it becomes conductive, while remaining low weight, soft, breathable, flexible, and stretchable. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate what products are suitable to be made with graphene textiles, by using the method Material Driven Design (MDD). Reflections are also made to determine how this method is affected by being applied to a two-dimensional material. To help with this, three kinds of graphene textiles from the company Grafren AB are investigated; conductive textiles, heatable textiles, and textile sensors. The product goal is to develop a portfolio containing 5-8 conceptual products based on these graphene textiles. The process includes conducting an investigation of the technical properties of the material, a user study, and a benchmarking study. This is done to understand the limitations and opportunities of the material, how it is perceived, and what similar materials there are on the market. After that, the material's characteristics are reflected upon to establish a vision for how it should be used in future applications. Then, to follow that vision, a user study is conducted to investigate how people perceive different materials and products, in order to create design guidelines to ensure that the material and product are perceived as intended. Next, concepts are developed according to the previously determined guidelines. To achieve this, idea generating workshops are conducted, where 14 concepts are selected for further development. The portfolio is then created, meant to inspire further usage of the material. It contains the following seven concepts. A heatable textile meant for cooking on camping trips. A fabric containing sensors that can notify when it is damaged. A keyboard made of fabric, for an easy and comfortable use and transportation. A stroller with sensors and heaters, for a more comfortable and safe user experience. A conductive jacket that can electrocute mosquitoes that come in contact with it. Pressure sensors in a carpet that can keep track of the people inside and provide assistance in emergencies. Gloves with sensors in them that can translate sign language live to text or speech. Since MDD heavily focuses on the sensorial qualities and physical characteristics of the material, the method needs to be adapted to become useful when working with such a versatile two-dimensional material. Fortunately, most adaptations can be made fairly easily. The timing of each step should also be considered, to ensure that the vision and guidelines can be made specific enough to be useful.

This thesis aims to find opportunities to support communication between new mothers to foster a sense of connectedness, during a pandemic where social interactions such as parent groups are unavailable. The project is based on research that shows that new parents have a great need for social support. Due to physical distancing, there was room for interaction design to intervene by exploring tangible solutions to develop innovative custom design. Through a user-centered design process, including findings from theory, interviews and design workshops with the target group, the study resulted in a co-created design proposal of a communication device in the form of a wearable wristband. The proposal showed positive indications in meeting the needs and desires of mothers found during a co-design workshop.

No description available.