Body adornment and interaction aesthetics: a new frontier for assistive wearables

The paper addresses the challenge of balancing the tension between a problem-solving attitude in the design of assistive devices, with an ethical, aesthetic and cultural approach to design for people living with a temporary or permanent impairment. The topic is developed presenting two design cases. The first case addresses a permanent disability. It is a suite of smart jewels tailored for hearing impairment, which sense environmental sounds (e.g. doorbell, someone calling) and notify the wearer of their occurrence through different modalities (light patterns, vibrations, shape changes). The second case addresses a temporary impairment. It is an orthodontic facemask for the correction of malocclusions in children, that has customised aesthetics and ergonomics and is associated with a digital game. The cases illustrate the experience-centred participatory design adopted to mitigate the stigma associated with current wearable assistive devices and promote a cultural shift to transform assistive wearables into beautiful, playful, gender-appropriate accessories.