Wrist-Worn Light-Based Smart Digital Jewellery

Dr.-Ing. Jutta Fortmann Wrist-Worn Light-Based Smart Digital Jewellery In recent years wearable devices have become an emerging trend in the consumer market. However, recent studies in the U.S. show that a third of owners of a wearable device abandon its use within six months. Supposed reasons are, among others, a lack in useful functions, aesthetics, and comfort. Smart Digital Jewellery has been proposed as an approach that could overcome the problem of abandonment and increase long-term acceptance of wearable devices by joining functionality with a decorative appearance. The term describes decorative objects worn on the body, that appear as jewellery and at the same time offer useful, computerised functions. Researchers have proposed a number of concepts for different types of Smart Digital Jewellery, but thorough investigations are missing. Specific design guidelines are needed that tell developers how to design broadly accepted wearable technology in the form of Smart Digital Jewellery. In this dissertation we investigated how wrist-worn Smart Digital Jewellery should be designed in order to be everyday suitable and meet the users’ needs. After having explored the scope of Smart Digital Jewellery, we investigated how wrist-worn Smart Digital Jewellery should look like, how information could be presented, and how a user could interact with Smart Digital Jewellery. We investigated single-purpose as well as multi-purpose Smart Digital Jewellery. The investigations were carried out by means of Smart Digital Jewellery prototypes, which we designed, built and evaluated in the lab and in real-life situations. Several scenarios illustrate the application of concepts to the domains of health promotion, everyday tools, and non-verbal communication. The contributions of this work are (1) the artefacts that were created during the research process as means of physical representations of the investigated concepts, (2) detailed insights into the human-centred design and evaluation of wrist-worn Smart Digital Jewellery for several use cases, (3) concrete recommendations on how to design wrist-worn Smart Digital Jewellery, i.e., according to appearance, information presentation, and interaction, and (4) the reflection on the applicability of a variety of human-centred prototyping and evaluation methods for researching Smart Digital Jewellery. The insights into the design and evaluation of wrist-worn Smart Digital Jewellery and the design recommendations provide a good step in pointing us towards designing acceptable wearables. They enable developers of wrist-worn technology to create appealing and comfortable devices that integrate well into everyday life. The reflection on the methods used helps researchers to choose appropriate methods for their studies, and identifies potential areas for future work.