Research

Wearable computing is the next step in the evolution of mobile computer systems towards ubiquitous computer usage. Its goal is to assist mobile users doing their work, by integrating computing power and sensors into their clothing and tools. These smart clothes and items detect the users context and assist the user in accessing relevant information at any time.

Usability obviously is an important factor for the success of this kind of application. Current software engineering processes however focus on functionality and not on user friendliness. Some attempts have been made to integrate methods from human computer interaction research into the software engineering process. However there are some practical issues that have prevented the widespread adoption of these adapted processes.

One of these issues is the difficulty of communicating the findings of HCI studies conducted to the rest of the design team. This project researches the use of structured task models, describing the user's work environment, to assist the design process of wearable computing applications. Together with UML for the system design, these models can serve as a central repository for all usability related information within such a project. Task models can be used in all stages of the design process from the initial analysis to the development and testing activities.

This project is related to the EU project wearIT@work for SAP.

Prof. Dr. Max Mühlhäuser

Phone: +49-6151-16-3709
Fax: +49-6151-16-3052
E-Mail: max (at) informatik (dot) tu-darmstadt (dot) de

Former Project Member:

• Dr. Tobias Klug

SAP

If you are interested in our work, don't hesitate to contact us.

Address
Darmstadt University of Technology
Department of Computer Science, Telecooperation
Hochschulstr. 10
D-64289 Darmstadt, Germany