Usability and Design of Personal Wearable and Portable Devices for Thermal Comfort in Shared Work Environments

Abstract

Personal comfort is important in the design of objects and environments. However, as comfort is a subjective experience, it is a very difficult aspect to design for. This paper presents an interrogation into the design for human thermal comfort, in particular the design of personal devices for use in shared work environments. The findings of two user studies are presented, in which wearable and portable, off-the-shelf personal heating and cooling devices were deployed in the field to explore the interaction with and use of these devices in everyday settings with the aim to uncover key aspects and requirements for the design of such devices. We found that functionality and affordances, i.e. the design for versatility, appropriation and mobility, as well as control, availability, effectiveness and efficiency of use were most important. Furthermore, individual preferences, foremost the preference for on-body versus off-body heating and cooling, and aspects related to wearable design of the devices, such as aesthetics, materiality, comfort of wear, mobility and unobtrusiveness, also need to be taken into account.

Contributors

Katja Knecht

Nick Bryan-Kinns

Karen Shoop

Conference

Publication date: July 2016

Publication date (Print): July 2016

Pages: 1-12

Affiliations

Queen Mary University of London

Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2016.41

Copyright statement: © Knecht et al. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. Proceedings of British HCI 2016 Conference Fusion, Bournemouth, UK

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Proceedings of the 30th International BCS Human Computer Interaction Conference

Conference acronym: HCI

Conference number: 30

Conference location: Bournemouth University, Poole, UK

Conference date: 11 - 15 July 2016

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Fusion

Product

Product Information: 1477-9358BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2016.41

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

Categories

Series title: Electronic Workshops in Computing