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Composite wearable computers combine multiple wearable devices to form a cohesive whole. Designing these complex systems and integrating devices to effectively leverage their affordances is nontrivial. To inform the design of composite wearable computers, we undertook a grounded theory analysis of 84 wearable input devices drawing from 197 data sources, including technical specifications, research papers, and instructional videos. The resulting prescriptive design framework consists of four axes: type of interactivity, associated output modalities, mobility, and body location. This framework informs a composition-based approach to the design of wearable computers, enabling designers to identify which devices fill particular user needs and design constraints. Using this framework, designers can understand the relationship between the wearable, the user, and the environment, identify limitations in available wearable devices, and gain insights into how to address design challenges developers will likely encounter.
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A Taxonomy for Selecting Wearable Input Devices for Mixed Reality
Composite wearable computers consist of multiple wearable devices connected together and working as a cohesive whole. These composite wearable computers are promising for augmenting our interaction with the physical, virtual, and mixed play spaces (e.g., mixed reality games). Yet little research has directly addressed how mixed reality system designers can select wearable input devices and how these devices can be assembled together to form a cohesive wearable computer. We present an initial taxonomy of wearable input devices to aid designers in deciding which devices to select and assemble together to support different mixed reality systems. We undertook a grounded theory analysis of 84 different wearable input devices resulting in a design taxonomy for composite wearable computers. The taxonomy consists of two axes: TYPE OF INTERACTIVITY and BODY LOCATION. These axes enable designers to identify which devices fill particular needs in the system development process and how these devices can be assembled together to form a cohesive wearable computer.
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- PAR ID:
- 10174278
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM Digital Library
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 2019 ACM International Conference on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 403 - 408
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3343055.3360759
