Design and smart technologies for physical activity as key factors in promoting quality of life and social inclusion

Abstract

Technological innovations offer many opportunities for design in the context of wearable computers and smart objects and their interaction with user and with ubiquitous computing systems. These technologies can be used to make new products and services designed to collect, increase and share information, knowledge, and emotion, through platforms, which support higher social awareness. If applied to the field of wellness, they can interact among each other, with the network and with the person, to drive and assist people, including socially vulnerable groups, towards an active and dynamic life, and they can become a means for monitoring the state of the user’s wellbeing and health. The aim of the research was to use the strategies of Human Centred Design to identify innovative scenarios and solutions able to involve people in an increasingly active and healthy life, as a commitment towards oneself and as a social responsibility.