Designing for Smart Clothes and Wearables—User Experience Design Perspective

Abstract

Due to the recent years’ advances in prototyping techniques, flexible electronics, and component miniaturization, research has emerged to explore novel concepts and functionalities for wearable computing. So far, the attention has been mostly toward technical rather than user experience studies, seeking to illustrate novel and proof-of-concept-level functional prototypes. In this chapter, wearable computing is approached from the user experience (UX) design point of view. The principles of UX design are discussed with respect to the area of designing smart clothes and accessories, and three examples of concept designs, focusing on young athletes, a solar powered coat design, and a smart handbag design, are presented.