Abstract
In anticipation of a world with increased use of wearable devices and an increasingly aging population, Joanna Lewis and Mark Neider provide some useful information about how to make wearable technology usable, particularly for older adults. As they point out, older adults, who are more likely to suffer from various deficits relative to the general population – eroding fine-motor control, decreased visual acuity, difficulty hearing high frequencies, and so on − can particularly benefit from wearable technologies that have the potential to address such deficits.
Wearable devices are natural candidates, for example, to help with drug compliance, to provide mechanisms for getting help in emergencies, and to monitor chronic conditions. The problem, though, is that the same deficits that wearable technology can help with have to be taken into account when designing the relevant products. Thus, Lewis and Neider provide a litany of factors to consider when designing for older adults.
Unlike Lewis and Neider, Abdusselam Cifter focuses on one particular technology often used by older adults: blood pressure monitors. Using the blood pressure monitor as an example, he shows how one can make progress in addressing usability simply by relying on human factors expertise, as opposed to doing empirical testing. He uses two techniques, hierarchical task analysis and heuristic evaluation, to compare existing blood pressure monitors. The result is a sophisticated critique of existing devices and a set of human factors recommendations for those designing new ones.
The final article, by Mary Amos and Glyn Lawson, focuses on a product that is begging to be addressed: the portable fire extinguisher. A cursory search on Amazon will reveal that just about all fire extinguishers continue to have the same basic configuration they had 50 years ago when no one had heard of human factors − red cylinders with control mechanisms at the top that could have been produced in 1950.
Despite having to be highly usable, fire extinguishers have to be protected from misuse.
But if there is any product that needs good human factors, it is the portable fire extinguisher. Using it successfully is a matter of life and death, but it has to be used by people who have no training in its use, who have never used one before, and who are likely to be in a state of panic. And portable fire extinguishers have to be used, in principle, by the entire population, including children, the elderly, and people with all types of disabilities.
As if all of that were not enough, Amos and Lawson discuss some other difficulties. Fire extinguishers contain one of four different suppressing agents: water, foam, dry powder, or CO2, each of which applies to a different set of fire types and can be dangerous if used on the wrong one. Also, despite having to be highly usable, fire extinguishers have to be protected from misuse, including intentional misuse, hence the rings or pins that make them impossible to use for some.
Given that fire extinguishers offer such “low-hanging fruit,” it is not surprising that there have been a number of attempts over the years to rethink their design. Two examples are the HomeHero, developed by Home Depot (designed by the Arnell Group), and the X Sting Wish student project done by Adam Scott. Despite these attempts, however, one still gets the Amazon search results I just mentioned.
Amos and Lawson tackle the problem with a variety of human factors/user-centered design methods: reviewing the literature, analyzing existing products in depth, shadowing fire extinguisher maintenance personnel, going through a fire awareness training class, interviewing experts and consumers, creating rough prototypes, and getting feedback from consumers using “empath gloves” that simulate a person with arthritis.
The result is a clear set of design goals for portable fire extinguishers and an initial concept of what a redesigned fire extinguisher could be. I hope their work gets translated into real products. I think it would save a lot of lives and property damage for (according to them) the 78% of fires that are put out without the help of the fire department.