A human-centered approach to the design and evaluation of wearable sensors - Framework and case study

As more wearable Smart sensors are used in e-Health applications the likelihood of clinical success is as much dependent on the clinical technology as the patient´s acceptance to wear the sensors. By using a human centered design approach and a structured framework to engage the views of developers and end users, sensors have been developed within the OPTIMI project that were iteratively adapted to specifically meet a large number of user needs. As a result they are likely to have a higher user acceptance and low dropout rate during the project´s clinical trials. This paper describes the approach taken and the results and experience derived from the project. The method has wider application to wearable ubiquitous computing.