Designing wearable devices for the factory: Rapid contextual experience prototyping

Research in Wearable Computing recently gained momentum in industrial settings. We report on the process of rapid experience prototyping for the factory context, in specific the cleanroom of a semiconductor factory, to analyse user experience issues with wearable devices. The cleanroom context poses specific design requirements, which challenge the development of wearable prototypes. Small errors can have a huge effect on the overall production cycle. We argue that wearable devices can address and support aspects such as safety and task compliance and thus support zero-defect production. As basis for the rapid contextual experience prototyping, we used the LilyPad Arduino and designed two different devices. By means of substitution task evaluation, we gained insights in experiencing wearable devices regarding information awareness, the interpretability of messages coming from the interface, and users' acceptance.