Is It Still Worth Challenging the Status Quo? A Design Process Article With an Example Application to Australian Jockey’s Safety Vests

Abstract

Horse racing is a highly dangerous activity that imposes the compulsory wearing of jockeys’ safety vests. Although “design thinking” has gained popularity in many fields (e.g., business, health, information technology, education), product innovation is still not used widely in the design of some of the personal protective equipment available to jockeys. This article discusses about an Australian design case study on jockeys’ safety vests that used a qualitative research approach along with user experience design principles, which led to consider a revision of this framework to accommodate design dependencies in terms of a suggested dependency-based user experience design framework. Hence, this article calls for further research in this field.

Keywords

Innovation user-centered design industrial design case study product standards

Race riding is well-acknowledged as a risky activity. Regardless of a jockey’s training and skill, falls are not preventable due to the interplay between the horse and the rider, which can result in unpredictable and unsightly events (Cripps, 2000). Despite it being compulsory for jockeys to wear personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gloves, helmets, goggles, and safety vests in races, yet jockeys are exposed to high risk during races (including at the starting gates, during the flat race, until they cross the finish line) and in conditioning horses during track work, knowing that at some point in their career they are likely to fall and get hurt (Polkinghorne, 2016).

Because of the diverse nature of sports and their varied injury risks, PPE is a broad product category in which athletes are often required to use a combination of pieces of an equipment to ensure full protection (Daneshvar et al., 2011; Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, 2014). The PPE literature discusses ways in which design innovation and the latest materials have been applied to protect athletes from injury. Despite the sharp rise in popularity of thoroughbred horse racing, there is still a limited understanding of producing differentiated safety vests to accommodate female and male users, leading to lack of ergonomics. Significantly, to date, no studies are available in the research literature that aimed to comprehend the intimate relationship between jockeys and their track-based medical professionals for insights into improving the design of safety vests. A recent publication (Giusti Gestri & Barnes, 2020) reflects on the barriers to innovation in jockey’s safety vests due to product standards and shows that there is limited innovation in the design of these products in Australia despite “consistent rates of serious and fatal injuries to jockeys and the growing participation of female jockeys in the sport” (p. 838).

This article provides deep insights into the safety vests for jockeys gathered through a qualitative research study that involved, at the same time, jockeys and related professional staff. The author considered medical, epidemiological, and surgical publications to build the basis of her study, which focused on the product experiences and on the design of the safety vests. The importance of wearing PPE during activities involving horses has been demonstrated in research, but still there is a need to bring much more innovation to the design of jockeys’ safety vests (Gibson et al., 2008). It is a fact that application of smart wearables in sports health has significantly increased, but it is only marginal in this field. A superior classification of jockeys’ injuries is required to collect the benefits of technologies because the integration of the cost data of jockeys’ injuries claims with the Australian Racing Industry database may bring benefits to safety measures (Curry et al., 2016). The knowledge generated by this study along with the insights gathered from the medical staff can contribute to smart vest blueprints. In this study, the author focused on the Australian jockeys’ population that might seem less as the subject for a new product design, but horse riders and partakers in other sports should also be targeted for innovative safety vests because their injuries are also similar to those reported in other sports (e.g., motorcycling and ski).

Both the terms innovation and status quo are derived from Latin: The first one means renewal or change, while the second indicates the existing state or structure. The author found that in the original design of jockeys’ safety vests, it is hard to change the present products to bring in innovation because it is almost impossible to obtain a revision of the standards in use since it does not take into consideration the users, and thus ergonomics is not applied. Hence, she decided to challenge the status quo in this field from a multidependent user point of view of design rather than from that of a single user, or a single-person user, conventionally used by designers employing the user experience design (UXD) model. The author asserted that while maintaining the primary user at the center of product innovation, dependencies on other users can become evident and should be accommodated in the design investigation. She discovered that these other users are not necessarily of less importance than the primary user, and incorporation of all users’ needs positions the design researcher to detect critical interactions and response patterns that can reveal innovation opportunities in their target product.

Observers and researchers of the design of health products have long mentioned the need for user-centered design (UCD) to acknowledge secondary and tertiary users (Norman, 1993; Norman & Draper, 1986; Tenhue, 2016). However, they do not have yet utilized a definition of those users that is nuanced to make them the same as primary users in terms of the significance of their input and access role. An example is the need for a designer of computer interfaces to contemplate a “primary” user (medical professional) and a “secondary” user (patient) of a medical screen information display: All the users need equal standing for their important contribution to design success. This is worth even for the safety vests for jockeys: Medical professionals and jockeys should have an equal status in the design process because they are directly involved in the use of these products in the specific case of jockeys’ falls.

Besides, the growing popularity of activity trackers and wearable health devices has introduced the concept that the data produced by these devices could help health professionals to treat their patients. Hence, the author suggests that technology should be considered and integrated with the safety vest’s design process because its application may transform them into a wearable technology, which produces benefits to jockeys and to medical professionals. The current vests are failing in providing sufficient protection and thus a reduction of injury recovery time to jockeys: Therefore, the opportunity of upgrading a safety vest into a wearable device deserves more research in this field. Yet, despite the rapid and successful development of smart wearable technologies in the sports and health sectors, safety vests still need improvement.

The author considered technology because its role to enhance safety vest function has not yet been analyzed in this field: Its application can transform a safety vest into a wearable technology, which brings benefits to jockeys and to health professionals. The growing popularity of activity trackers and wearable health devices has introduced the concept that the data generated by these devices could help health professionals to treat their patients. The performance of current safety vests for jockeys as devices to protect against injury during impact is not sufficient to afford demands regarding injury recovery, yet the possibility of upgrading a safety vest into a wearable device may introduce multiple benefits.

The term wearable technology refers to garments or accessories that are created or enhanced using electronics (King, 2011). Due to wearable technology’s proximity to the human body, it can be used to monitor data about a user or their surroundings (Svanberg, 2013). Users are generally considered to be passive adapters of technology, but this study aimed to reconceive the users’ role in the active mode because the users are those capable of building new meaning through the wearable interface (Samdanis et al., 2013). Hence, challenging the status quo in the horse racing industry can be worthy because it may generate a new design for safety vests for jockeys. Therefore, the author conducted this study regarding the “design of the solution,” which shifts from the outside in.

Jockeys’ Risks and Injuries

PPE is core in preserving athletes’ safety when participating in sport. Sports are of diverse nature, and the PPE literature debates ways in which design innovation and the advanced materials available have been applied to safeguard athletes from injury, although there is no specific literature discussing the design of jockeys’ safety vests. Wearing appropriate and properly fitted protective equipment, clothing, and footwear helps in preventing about 50% of sports injuries (Sports Medicine Australia, 2008).

In Australia, an average of 200 jockeys are injured every year on racetracks, of which 89% of falls requires medical assistance, with 40% of jockeys not available to ride for an average of 5 weeks in a year (National Jockeys Trust, 2017). The most common injuries sustained by jockeys are fractures and soft tissue damage, but the most serious are head injury and spinal damage, which can cause permanent, debilitating injuries and even result in death (Aitken, 2017; Johnston, 2017; Mackey-Laws, 2016; O’Connor et al., 2017). The catastrophic injuries suffered by jockeys in the torso area because of falls (Filby et al., 2012; McCrory et al., 2006) highlight the poor level of protection offered by the current safety vests. Jockeys are well-trained and possess strong skills, but still it is not possible to prevent a fall: Horses are trained as well but because of their unpredictable animal nature, they are evolved to use their agility and speed to escape danger.

Due to the risks that jockeys face, health professionals attend all race meetings to monitor the well-being of the riders. Indeed, during races, ambulances follow the jockeys in an adjacent track: the staff is composed of a doctor, two ambulance officers, and a registered critical care nurse who are ready to immediately rescue the jockeys if a fall occurs (Australian Harness Racing, 2015; Racing.com, 2008; Wilson Medic One, 2015).

Notwithstanding the reduction in the number of jockeys’ deaths since the introduction of the compulsory use of safety vests, their effectiveness has come under sporadic criticism. Already in 2003, Roe et al. called for the efficacy of safety vests to be evaluated alongside a safety education program being introduced for all horse riders. Even Foote et al. (2011) confirmed the importance of wearing safety vests and helmets during race riding, but criticized about the variety of standards covering PPE for jockeys. Particularly, this report noted a paucity of data about the incidence and type of injuries sustained by jockeys in thoroughbred racing.

The Case Study about Jockeys’ Safety Vests

The Importance of Good Design for Users

The Australian case study discussed in this article investigated issues associated with jockeys’ safety vests that could prevent product innovation, starting from a UCD and a UXD framework. The design was relevant and considered an integral part of the evolution and/or implementation of product innovation. Specifically, Harte et al.’s (2017) definition of UXD as “the perceptions and responses of users that result from their experience of using a product or service” (p. 2) was applied to this study to identify primary and secondary users who could affect the development of the safety vests’ design.

As previously stated, design research focuses on what ought to be via the disruption of the status quo, thus the author focused on the users. Their understanding, needs, duties, and habitats represent the basis of good design: It is well-known that the UCD process is at the core of designer-dictated design that considers people as an extension of the designed artefact, whereas UXD process focuses on the experience of what is designed. UXD is a core process of intensifying user satisfaction with a product via its accessibility, usability, and the pleasure developed by the interaction of the user with the product.

The application of the UCD process as a starting point to a dynamic and multidimensional cycle incorporating research, defining, creating, and testing led the author to start identifying the people who primarily utilize the product (jockeys and related medical staff), then the reasons for using that (it is a safety tool), and under what circumstances it was used (horse racing). Generally, the following kinds of users are identified: primary, secondary, and tertiary (Eason, 1987). Specifically, primary users are those who utilize a product, while the secondary users are people who use a product via an intermediary. On the other hand, tertiary users are people who may take decisions or have a say in the product’s purchase (Abras et al., 2004; Bergvall-Kåreborn & Ståhlbrost, 2008).

This study was the first exploration of the user and co-dependent user, where both depend on the successful design of a product. Its uniqueness is due to the involvement of such an “unusual” group of participants (jockeys and health professionals). In this case study based on the UXD and UCD processes, the jockeys were considered the primary users of safety vests in directly utilizing the product. But the medical staff were neither called the secondary users, because they directly deal with the safety vests, nor named tertiary users, because they are not the decision maker in purchasing the product. Hence, the author named the medical professionals as co-dependent users.

Australian Jockeys’ Safety Vests and Design Knowledge

The literature shows a substantial number of studies debating on the frequency and nature of jockeys’ injuries, ending in requesting more effective safety vests (e.g., Moss et al., 2002; Yim et al., 2007). Also, some authors call for specific consideration of the design of safety vests for jockeys (Firth, 1985; Foote et al., 2011; Gibson et al., 2008; SafetySolutions, 2014).

Australian jockeys must wear safety vests, which were introduced in 1998. Since then, the Australian Racing Board (ARB) introduced the Australian standard ARB 1.1998, which was drawn up by Gibson, and it is based on the SATRA standard to which safety vests must conform (Foote et al., 2014). Today, both ARB 1.1998 and EN 13158 standards are still applied. The reason for developing an Australian standard was the perceived climatic differences between Australia and Europe.

According to Racing Australia (2020), a horse rider “when mounted on a horse, including but not limited to in a race, official trial, jump-out or track work” (p. 63) must wear a properly fastened safety vest. Hence, based on the race meetings or track work sessions they have been booked for, jockeys wear safety vests for many hours every day: They must wear safety vests when mounting horses (races and/or track sessions), but often jockeys even wear them while waiting to go back on the saddle.

The main purpose of a safety vest is to reduce the shock of impact to jockeys’ bodies in case a fall occurs and to protect them against penetrating injuries (e.g., being kicked by a horse). As of today, Australian safety vests for jockeys must comply with the ARB 1.1998 or the EN 13158 standards (Racing Australia, 2020). Hence, ARB 1.1998 is certified by Standards Australia, and it determines that safety vests are made of perforated foam strips of varying thickness and covered with mesh polyester. Some present adjustable strips, while others have Velcro sections on the shoulders or on the waist zones with the aim of maintaining the vests narrow on the jockeys’ bodies (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Jockeys’ safety vests in use and approved by the Australian Racing Board (Giusti Gestri & Barnes, 2020).

The current vests are described as bulky and stiff, and thus restrictive and uncomfortable to wear: specifically, there is a need for jockeys’ perspectives to be fed into product development. Although wearing PPE is seen to have reduced the number and severity of impact injuries to the jockeys to an extent, still in case of emergency (e.g., where jockeys require medical attention on the track following a fall) the PPE can obstruct access to the chest, face, and head, interfering with the ability of medical crews to properly stabilize jockey’s spine or head (Giusti Gestri & Barnes, 2020).

Casa and Stearns (2015) highlight the problem of obstruction where immobilization on a spine board is required. To date, according to the two standards in use in Australia, only two safety vests templates are available, and these must accommodate male and female jockeys of varying body shapes and sizes (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Coverage area templates applied to EN (left) and SATRA/ARB (right) standards (Foote et al., 2014).

The thickness and the kind of material used as padding determine safety vest’s impact performance. In Australia, standards play a core role because those that are currently used do not allow innovation (e.g., use of latest materials, technologies and templates) and thus creating a vicious loop for a new design as well.

The vests used by Australian jockeys (Racing Australia, 2020) are often described as bulky and stiff, and hence restrictive and uncomfortable to wear with a need for jockeys’ perspectives to be fed into product development. However, the safety vests may obstruct access to the chest, while goggles and helmets may slow down the access to the face and head injuries: Medical professionals must quickly overcome these problems to stabilize jockeys and provide medical aid. Along with the rigidity and hot temperature experienced by jockeys while wearing the vests, female participants face another issue. Female jockeys reported to the author that they prefer the vests worn during track work to those required for racing because those vests are heavier but softer: They need extra comfort because those vests tend to mold to their body shape slightly better. Participants clearly explained that the safety vests worn during race days were a source of discomfort, and thus, the majority of jockeys reported wearing them differently than they were meant to be worn – for instance, leaving the vest a bit looser.

The Challenge: The Absence of Design Innovation

To understand the complexity and the constraints on innovation in the design of Australian jockeys’ safety vests, the author organized a program of ethnographic research to understand jockeys’ and medical professionals’ experiences with and their perceptions of the safety vests. This study employed a flexible, qualitative research design incorporating individual semistructured interviews, a focus group, and an observation conducted in 2016–2017. The research design utilized the product ecology framework as suggested by Forlizzi (2007) to expand the sense of what a product is and what it could be: Hence, its value was applied to develop insights to contest the representation of a product in a long-established product standard. Forlizzi’s concept of product ecology strongly supported this study in expanding how a product evokes social behavior, offering a path for choosing the adequate research method, expanding the design culture in interaction design that allows for design-centered research. Users are unique, so each one associates different meanings and feelings with the product because of the everyday use of the same product, which leads to a long-established product standard. Hence, a qualitative approach and a holistic, interpretative sense-making approach to the study supported the author’s analysis because qualitative research investigates how people build their realities and what meaning they associate with their experiences (Merriam & Tisdell, 2015).

The author identified jockeys as the primary users because they wear the safety vests, while the secondary users were recognized as primary users undergoing a secondary user experience (medical staff), and there were even the tertiary users, who could be those responsible for taking care of the vests and/or those designing or manufacturing them. Therefore, the participants were the primary users of the safety vests, which comprised apprentice jockeys (n = 6), fully qualified jockeys (n = 9), and former jockeys (n = 2). Along with them, there was a secondary user group included: the medical professionals who handled the safety vests when jockeys were injured and often unconsciously lying on the turf. Thus, two doctors and one intensive care paramedic formed this group, which led to a total of 20 participants (Table 1).

Table 1

Participant codes, racing, and fall experience of participants in this study

Participant Code	Category	Gender	Years of Experience	Falls	International Races
AJ 01	Apprentice jockey	M	5	Yes	No
AJ 02	Apprentice jockey	F	4	No	No
AJ 03	Apprentice jockey	M	2	Yes	No
AJ 04	Apprentice jockey	M	3	Yes	No
AJ 05	Apprentice jockey	M	3	Yes	No
J 01	Jockey	F	6	Yes	No
J 02	Jockey	M	21	Yes	Yes
J 03	Jockey	M	24	Yes	Yes
J 04	Jockey	F	28	Yes	Yes
J 05	Jockey	M	30	Yes	Yes
J 06	Jockey	M	18	Yes	Yes
J 07	Jockey	F	5	Yes	Yes
J08	Jockey	F	18	Yes	Yes
D 01	Doctor	M	28	n/a	n/a
ICP	Intensive care paramedic	M	3	n/a	n/a
D 02	Doctor	M	10	n/a	n/a
AJ 06	Apprentice jockey	M	3	Yes	No
J 09	Jockey	M	16	Yes	Yes
JR 01	Retired jockey	M	28	Yes	Yes
JR 02	Retired jockey	M	12	Yes	Yes

Note. M = male; F = female; n/a = not applicable.

It was crucial to understand the experiences with and perceptions of current safety vests from all the participants shown in Table 1: They were coded in the chronological order in which each met with the author first. Significantly, the author decided to use different codes for the apprentice and fully qualified jockeys because due to their difference in age, some of them would have started to ride prior to safety vests becoming mandatory: This offered unique insights into the aim of her study, especially about an important design limitation with the current vests. Currently, medical professionals must dedicate more time in trying to find out the best and less harmful ways to remove the vests form the injured, and often unconscious, jockeys lying on the track after falls.

Highlights From Research Data

Participant jockeys demonstrated consciousness about how risky their profession is and even how they welcome the PPE products on the market, even if they do not totally guarantee their safety, as follows:

For what we do, there is always no guarantee . . . And again, the perception is not that we expect the vest to save our lives . . . All we want it to do is to help us, not hinder us in a racing incident.

The limitation of movements represents a serious issue for jockeys: They must be able to bend their heads, turn to look around for other horses, talk to each other during races, and even roll into a ball in the case of a nosedive fall, which is a common form of tumble where they can be flung into the ground. Jockeys had concerns for not having been involved in the development of standards for vest design and about the safety vests being tight and restrictive: They mainly attributed this to a “system that had not paid attention to their concerns or involved in the development of standards for vest design” (Giusti Gestri & Barnes, 2020, p. 846). Limitation of movements represents a serious problem for jockeys because they must be able to bend their heads while racing and turn to look around for other horses, talk to each other, and eventually roll into a ball when a nosedive fall occurs – a common form of tumble where jockeys can be flung forward into the ground.

The search for knowledge can be defined via design research, which usually focuses on what ought to be via the disruption of the status quo, while it is concerned with what ought to be rather than what already exists (Milton & Rodgers, 2013), and the author found that this is not the case in the field of designing jockeys’ safety vests. The thoroughbred horse racing industry is affected by luxury, which is predominant in affirming the status quo, and it interests jockeys’ lifestyles: Many people are attracted by the equestrian world because it is a way to show off their success and flaunt their wealth. The horse racing industry internationally generates a huge volume of money and being part of it as an owner or attendee is another way to show social status.

Female Jockeys’ Responses About the Need for Ergonomics

Primary users involved in this case study remarked the rigidity of the safety vests and how these can be hot and even heavy to wear. Significantly, the female jockeys involved in this study commented that the vests should be softer and comfortable to wear and accommodate their body shapes. This was clearly explained by a participant as follows:

From a female’s point of view or perspective, I think definitely they need to have a male and a female vest. That’s my opinion. They do it with all the motorbike gear and all that sort of stuff. The only reason I know is because I used to ride a lot of dirt bikes when I was younger. There’s a big difference with the female body suits compared to the male’s body suit. Obviously, we’ve got our breasts and our hips and stuff – our curves [motorbike gear] was all fitted. It was completely different.

The vests worn during racing activities produce discomfort, and thus, several participants declared wearing them differently than they were meant to be worn– for example, leaving it a bit looser on the sides or even wearing it backward. The author gathered important data from the medical professionals, specifically about the nature and severity of the injuries they have treated and the ways in which the safety vests interfered with their actions.

Factors that suggest the need for significant revisions are the rise in the number of female jockeys (Norton, 2015; Parke, 2018), the jockeys’ riding style that is continuously evolving since 1998, and the climate changes that increase the risk of heat stress and uneasiness for Australian jockeys when wearing vests. The current vests indicate a strong need for attention to the ergonomics and the possibility of alternative designs to accommodate male and female bodies.

D-UX: A Catalyst for Innovation?

How to Accommodate Co-Dependent Users in Design Research

Indeed, every user is unique and may interact with the same product and situation in diverse ways. Therefore, designers become crucial to guarantee unforgettable user experience; they must understand the users and their needs, with the scope to create an innovative and winning product design. Particularly, the UXD research relies on positive users’ emotions (e.g., delight, enjoyment, and pride): For this reason, designers must listen to what users are asking, because in this way they are capable of demonstrating empathy. Besides, the use of ergonomics enables the creation of design solutions based on experienced human needs: In this way, a high level of usability may be reached.

There are situations where a product is required to meet the needs of the user and a co-dependent user’s contribution to the performance and success of the design is crucial, not merely desirable. In the case of jockeys’ safety vests, it can be shown that the design is dependent on its functional purpose on jockeys as the primary users and on the medical staff as co-dependent users. Hence, this study focused on the role of safety vest design in product innovation, particularly exanimating the vest functions and standards form the main content. The UCD and the human-centered design (HCD) are often used interchangeably even though they slightly differ from each other and are not necessarily suitable for every situation.

The author intentionally focused on examining how products intended for one group of users require meeting the needs of a group of co-dependent users: Thus, the application of UXD and HCD/UCD models applicable to the jockeys’ safety vests led her to consider whether the product’s success required the qualitative insights of those that she named co-dependent users, whose experience was even critical to the design’s success. However, this study confirmed the importance of including the users (jockeys) and co-dependent users (medical staff) in the design process for a product (safety vest) that plays a core role in their lives. Thus, focusing on any kind of user group will lead to creating a design capable of bringing meanings and ergonomics to satisfy users’ needs.

A New Design Framework for Future Research?

When users’ needs are satisfied through a product that can please multiple and diverse users, then it is possible to talk about inclusive design, which is core in a designer’s life. Both UXD and UCD focus on providing products that develop and obtain a great experience with the users: There are standards that support and stimulate designers in all fields to consider end-user participation as a characteristic of progressive design practice.

In addition, the only focus on users’ everyday life experiences, emotions, and desires is the method known as HCD, which is capable of interpreting users’ moods and is even considered as a tool to solve users’ problems (Mattelmäki et al., 2014). The HCD process encompasses to satisfy questions such as who, what, when, how, and why to provide knowledge of human factors, semiotics, functions, communication, and meaning to establish a profound understanding of the context for use (Giacomin, 2014; Harte et al., 2017). Through the employment of human factors and/or ergonomics and usability knowledge, the design process can be managed.

Reflecting on the users’ identification, commonly we do not recognize primary and secondary users who may affect the evolution of a product’s design. Designers are important because they are those who imagine and create: They interact with the world because they should produce a product that satisfies the users’ needs, whose functionality is both physical and emotional due to its design, which means making things better for people (Seymour, 2012).

This study was based on the features attributed to a product according to the product ecology: via an extension to the conventional UXD and UCD processes in cases such as this one. A class of users might exist that is not classifiable as secondary or tertiary users, nor as a stakeholder, but rather as a co-dependent user group that receives the right attention in design research. Co-dependent users rely on the same product’s design that influences the primary user group also: Both groups have a core role in product innovation and in as such the author justified their inclusion at the center of this study for the importance of enhancing the safety vest’s features of sustainability, ergonomics, and wearability. The existence of a special class of user experience that can be summarized as a dependent class helped the author in producing the dependency-based user experience (D-UX) process (Figure 3), which allows the identification of needs and preferences of co-dependent users, still as a supplement of the conventional UXD and UCD processes.

Figure 3.

Dependency-based user experience design process (Giusti Gestri, 2019).

In Figure 3, the author incorporated the design thinking concepts that are complementary and lead into each other. The process would therefore be able to explore, discover, design, and produce an infinite loop of iterative thinking and making. The use of the infinity symbol highlights the importance of a designer to always keep repeating the process until a successful product is reached. Besides, design with users rather than design for users led the author to highlight the importance of putting at the center of a design process not only the user but also the co-dependent user because both rely on the same product’s design and thus shown as two pieces of the same puzzle.

Based on the D-UX process, the fact that there are situations in which the success of a product design not only relies on qualitative engagement with a target user or user persona (e.g., the UXD process), or with a special human user at the center (e.g., the UCD process), but also is co-dependent on the equal engagement of a critical co-dependent user is confirmed. The D-UX process can assist in developing safety equipment for sports such as horse racing, horse riding, and others (e.g., cycling, BMX riding, snowboarding, and motorcycling) in which similar injuries are experienced. The D-UX process is suggested to be used when facing a product’s design that must accommodate needs from various users’ groups.

Synthesis and Proposals

Even though this study intentionally did not introduce specific design attributes, it should be considered as the basis of future research: The aim should be to explore smart materials and latest technologies. However, the author proposed a set of concept designs to show early stages of improvements applicable to safety vests for jockeys with the aim of achieving product innovation and challenge the status quo, which is hindered by the product standards.

The research design was introduced by Singh et al. (2012) in as much as the use of a design method has core relevance because it needs a very systematic approach. For this specific study, the author applied a problem-driven design: To accommodate the request of a super-lightweight but still flexible safety vests, she considered spiders because they can obtain a durable fabric design, while the camouflage of chameleons may be helpful in creating fabrics able to communicate the injury’s location to the medical professionals. Particularly, chameleon’s skin is covered with several layers of special cells called chromatophores, which respond to chemicals from the nervous system and bloodstream. The application of a new superthin fabric composite material, made up of strips that reflect different wavelengths of light, may convert these products into wearable tech. For instance, as the fabric bends or moves, different strips are revealed, reflecting various wavelengths and effectively changing color. Each cell could be expanded from an invisible dot into a colorful disk, which gives color to a corresponding portion of the skin, which is layered. Inspired by this phenomenon, the author suggested that safety vests may use different colors to communicate the jockey’s injuries to the medical staff when a fall occurs. Specifically, the application of such an advanced material along with a small device (e.g., sensor) may also support the creation of an updated database for jockeys’ medical conditions and the possibility of live access to those data by any authorized medical professional, when needed. Thus, the shape shown in Figure 4 is derived from nature’s design inspirations, specifically from spiderwebs, eggs, and flowers.

Figure 4.

Proposed pattern for jockeys’ safety vests (Giusti Gestri, 2019).

The design concept shape in Figure 4 may accommodate jockeys’ needs in asking for a product capable of following and adapting to their movements, rather than being a restriction to their race posture. Thus, two materials were considered as integration into an innovative shape to reach a product that is able to respect jockeys’ movement but still light and breathable in performance. The author presents various colors (Figure 5) that may be able to use stretchable materials that can even fit into a Racelite vest, which at the time of this study was the most favored among jockeys during races.

Figure 5.

Proposed pattern color variations (Giusti Gestri, 2019).

The pattern shown in Figure 5 employed smaller shapes than those available on present vests: these new shapes may be made using one of the latest materials accessible on the market but integrated with a stretchy material. Besides, tailor-made variations could be offered that employed various colors or different shape sizes within the pattern: This can be a start to accommodate the different needs that male and female jockeys possess and introduce ergonomics in these products. The author proposes more investigation to understand which option fulfills users’ needs and eventually to modify the standards to make such a change possible. Particularly, attention should be given to the design of the neck cut at both the front and back of the safety vests: Their standards should be reinterpreted and possibly lead to the development of an outfit consisting of vest and helmet.

Conclusions

This study proves that there are many unpopular products and users that need to see ergonomics applied in their fields, such as in the case of jockeys’ safety vests. The challenge of the status quo and the product standards allows designers to consider multiple users (e.g., primary, secondary, co-dependent), to apply the latest materials and technologies into products along with ergonomics to bring in innovation. The D-UX process that the author proposed may support in addressing the needs of users and co-dependent users, who all depend on the success of the same product’s design (e.g., in the fields of safety vests, appliances, medical devices). In her study, the introduction of innovation would support the development of safety vests through the application of the latest materials, and the use of technology may create a wearable tech safety vest and lead the input of ergonomics. These findings may be applicable to other high-impact sports (e.g., ski, motorcycling, hockey), where users experience similar injuries to those reported by jockeys and horse riders.

The consideration of both users and co-dependent users located in the D-UX process is the core of innovation and the fulfilment of their needs, and through a serviceable and functional design, their issues are solved. Due to that reason, designers may offer full customized solutions through a complete application of ergonomics in every design field. Indeed, the utilization of co-dependent user experience design is universal. The application of the D-UX process will be fundamental to guarantee the design’s success of a product but even provides foundations for future directions in design research.

Footnotes

Lisa Giusti Gestri has international experience in product and industrial design. She has acquired vast know-how in research, design thinking, human-centred design, innovation, advanced materials, and user experience design. She is an enthusiastic, versatile professional with expertise in multiple facets of product engineer and design. Her research is about the design’s power to change people’s lives for the better. ORCID iD:

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