Wearable Design for Epilepsy Patients: Human-Centered Design and Speculative Design for a Positive User Experience

Abstract

Despite encouraging indicators that epilepsy cases can be prevented with low-cost, efficient drugs, a significant number of patients are resistant to treatment. Constant monitoring is one technique to get around this problem. Wearables are a suitable alternative, but they must deliver a positive user experience; hence, they must consider “material” and functional factors. Human-Centred Design (HCD) is an effective method to achieve that because it focuses on users’ needs. However, HCD is concerned with the potential problem space but overlooks some essential features of technological use. Speculative design is a method for investigating potential design outcomes and possibilities that may arise in the future (i.e., problems concerning privacy). In this sense, the paper argues that speculative design can extend HCD to create wearables for epilepsy patients who require constant monitoring.Keywords: Epilepsy, Human-Centered Design, Privacy, Speculative Design, User Experience, Wearables