Wellsport
The jacket for athletic buffs and casual exercisers alike.
By Kendra Dobson and Kasey Meridith
Description of the product
When first deciding on the features of this wellness jacket, we wanted it to be a jacket that both athletic buffs and those who like to leisurely stroll would find useful. The jacket is offered in both a weatherproof shelled-exterior with faux down insert and a lighter dri-fit textile for those reasons. Because of its many functions, we wanted the jacket to be powered up without an external or changeable battery for better motion dynamics.
The jacket is powered through a charging cord/cable that is included with purchase of the jacket and threads through the interior input on the upper right hand side of the jacket and plugs into a wall socket. It has a micro usb cord so that if users lose the initial cord, replacement isn’t an obscure solution in terms of cords. In order to gauge clear stats of both the user’s environment and their body, sensors are placed on the back, for wind temperature, on the left arm for blood pressure, sides of the chest for breath rate and on the right sleeve by the wrist for heart rate and skin temperature.
Each sleeve is categorized into phone and info. The left sleeve has an LCD screen that is designated for text message retrieval and sending, and call retrieval and denial. In order for the user not to feel overloaded with information, we’ve separated the information of the user’s body and environment to the other sleeve. At a quick glance, the user can see incoming calls and messages simply by raising their left sleeve. The right sleeve will display heart rate and body temperature with two taps to the right wrist via LED lights, similar to that of an alarm clock. This is to conserve the charging life of the jacket so the user does not have to continuously charge the jacket. This would also reduce the cost of the jacket rather than having two LCD screens. The forearm extends the display of the information hub, displaying breath rate and weather. It will also display the blood pressure if the user taps and holds their wrist as if they were checking their pulse. Users can edit which two pieces of information they wish to display readily on their wrist, such as exchanging the weather for heart rate, via app pairing with their phone.
Feedback/ User Testing
When speaking to a sample of users here are a few things that they said:
A 63 year old woman who walks every day and uses a fitbit to keep track of her steps reviewed the sketches and listened to explanations of the jacket design. She said that it sounds clear, but she had a few questions and comments. She said that she thinks the phone screen display would feel better on the inner arm rather than the outer arm. She demonstrated that she would rather look at the screen on the underside of her arm rather than the top.
But she agreed that the smaller screen on the wrist should show information on the top like a watch would.
She also had a question about the language "skin temperature" and said that "body temperature" would probably be better understood.
Here’s what others said:
Forearm led display seems redundant, could there be a way that they can be combined. Forearm shouldn’t be multiple screens. There should be a way to activate the cascading of info.
I wouldn't use this product because I’m not that level of health conscious and the initial offering would be very expensive. i am in fairly decent shape so i don’t need that much health monitoring.
Does it have a hood or pocket?
Initial sketches
Final Sketches
Foam Core Prototype
Here’s how it works!
Design Justification
For our video prototype we created physical prototypes to demonstrate how the product would work. We used simple office supplies to represent the information that would be shown on screens placed on the sleeves of the jacket. Kendra used a foam core to represent a display screen for this iteration of the prototype. The foam core, moreover, is used here to display the information that will pop up on screen when the user initiates an action, but the final product will be a flat surface on the jacket. For example, the sleeve around a wrist that shows vitals and outside temperature looks more like a watch as a foam core prototype, but will not look like a watch in a more high fidelity model further down the line. The same is true for the foam core representation of a phone screen that is presented on the opposing sleeve. In a more high fidelity model we imagine the wrist information to be presented with LED lights.
The foam core prototype that Kendra made and the paperboard prototype that Kasey made are iterations of the same design that are meant for two different user types. Kasey’s prototype represents a jacket made for skiing, and Kendra’s is a representation of a jacket made for jogging. Both jackets have the same technical functions, and though our prototypes are slightly different in representation, they are both based off of the final sketch that we agreed upon as a team. Differences in representation are only due to the materials used to make the individual physical prototypes and do not diverge in design or ideation.
Changes from the initial sketch to the final sketch went through a few group iterations before we decided on one that we would share to collect feedback. From the feedback, we made sure to put the phone screen display on the inner, or underside of the arm instead of on top where we originally put it. Users stated that the display on the top of the arm seemed awkward and they would rather lift their arm, palm facing up, to check a screen that syncs with their phone screen.
We also made modifications to the overall design of the jacket by adding a hood, pockets, and a charger. The charger went through a few iterations due to user feedback. We changed the charger port to be more discreet, having the wire thread through the inside rather than the outside, like a headphone jack on a backpack. In the final physical prototype, this asset is hidden inside the jacket.
Thinking ahead, our group discussed a design where two LCD screens on the inner forearms would present information for the user of both the ski and jogging jacket. We took cost into consideration and recommended further research on a more cost effective approach. We would also like to research the amount of power that this iteration would use and we plan to compare results to other iterations of the design that would make better use of power and weight distribution.
For this prototype, we adjusted Wellsport’s design according to our forward thinking. We decided to only have an inner forearm LCD screen for phone call retrieval and denial as well as sending and reading text messages instead of one that syncs to all applications on the phone to cut down on the amount of power needed to run the jacket’s system. Further research can be done to evaluate these concerns.
We also discussed the user initiated actions that would prompt each screen. We decided that two taps of the finger on the vital sleeve would prompt the sleeve to menu through vital information, and one tap would allow for a blood pressure test. This is also a feature that needs further research and testing, but the idea is that the user’s actions differ between checking vitals on the go and slowing down to undergo a full blood pressure test. Moreover, when conducting a blood pressure test the sleeve on the upper arm will constrict and hold for one minute to get a reading. The reading will display on the wrist sleeve where all other vitals and temperatures are also displayed.