Wearable Computing: Information and Communication Technology Supporting Mobile Workers

Transcription

1 Schwerpunktthema it 1/2008 Wearable Computing: Information and Communication Technology Supporting Mobile Workers Wearable Computing: Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie zur Unterstützung mobiler Arbeiter Michael Boronowsky, Otthein Herzog, Michael Lawo, Universität Bremen Summary The terms Ubiquitous Computing, Wearable Computing, and Ambient Intelligence are discussed and it is shown that the methodology of Living Labs will be crucial to the success of Wearable Computing. Research problems such as energy supply and power management, wearable user interfaces, context detection, and user acceptance and usability are described and illustrated by examples taken from the EU Integrated Project showing how Living Labs are used introducing the technology in practice. KEYWORDS Zusammenfassung Die Begriffe,,Ubiquitous Computing,,,Wearable Computing und,,ambient Intelligence werden gegenüber gestellt und es wird argumentiert, dass die Methode,,Living Lab kritisch für eine erfolgreiche Einführung des Wearable Computing in der Praxis ist. Forschungsfragen wie Stromversorgung, Benutzungsschnittstellen, Kontexterkennung und Akzeptanz durch die BenutzerInnen werden diskutiert und anhand des EU-integrierten Projekts wird der Nutzen von Living Labs für die Einführung in der Praxis an Beispielen erläutert. I.2 [Computing Methodologies: Artificial Intelligence]; J.7 [Computer Applications: Computers in other Systems]; Wearable Computing, Ambient Intelligence, Living Labs, power management, wearable user interfaces for mobile solutions, context recognition / Wearable Computing, Ambient Intelligence, Living Labs, Stromversorgung, Benutzungsschnittstellen für mobile Lösungen, Kontexterkennung 1 Historic Remarks The increasing miniaturization of computing devices and the advances in wireless connectivity had enabled an interesting potential for intelligent and connected artefacts. In the early 1990ies Mark Weiser has established the Vision of Ubiquitous Computing changing the interaction paradigm from the desktop based one person/one computer to assistive and supportive environments, allowing for the use of various distributed devices in a single user context [21]: Ubiquitous Computing is the method of enhancing computer use by making many computers available throughout the physical environment, but making them effectively invisible to the user. Embedded in everyday objects a user interacts with several systems at a time. The interaction itself is basedonamorenaturalintegration into the overall environment, so that the vision is to provide an unobtrusive access to benefits of the invisible computing power. This was certainly a very broad vision which 30 it Information Technology 50 (2008) 1/ DOI /itit Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag came true at least in the aspects of device intelligence and communication, but not concerning the devices (tabs, pads, boards) which carry the direct interaction with a person. We have PDAs, MDAs, UMPCs, and Notebooks today, but not the free interchange of devices as Weiser envisioned it: data is still mostly kept accessible on a single computer, and still hardware cost (and yet unsolved synchronization questions between the different devices with their specialized capabilities) preclude the mass availability of tabs, pads, and

2 Wearable Computing: Information and Communication Technology... boards in a nowadays computing environment. The MIT Media Lab was the cornerstone of the early wearable computing efforts as documented by the work of Mann [12] (now with the University of Toronto) and Starner [18] (now with the Georgia Institute of Technology) where both of them continue to work in their respective research areas. In 2002, Philips Research branded the term Ambient Intelligence (AmI) [7] aiming to create an environment that is sensitive to the presence of people and responsive to their needs. In [25] the following definition for AmI is given: Ambient Intelligence (AmI) refers to a vision of the future information society where intelligent interfaces enable people and devices to interact with each other and with the environment. The concept of AmI applied in some sense the work done earlier by Weiser [21] and Mattern [13] to consumer environments. 2 Wearable Computing and Ambient Intelligence Based on the vision of Ambient Intelligence the Information Technologies Program Advisory Group of the European Commission (ISTAG) compiled a user-centric vision of supportive environments in four different scenarios [4]: (1) Maria, the road warrior : Focus on business related cases with high profit potential; the scenario is an extension of today s already well-developed demands for laptop computers, mobile phones and personal digital assistants. (2) Dimitros, the digital me : Focus on the human social dynamics and communication; maintaining existing relationships and creating new ones are a major driver in telecommunication revenues (mobile, s). The scenario is focussing on the observable contemporary trend of dispersion of human communities (e. g., smaller families, flexible work schedules, greater mobility). (3) Carmen: Traffic, Sustainability & Commerce : Focus on the living in an AmI environment as a consumer; the scenario assumes that people already live in an AmI environment and have changed their basic daily behaviour, like the way they do their shopping or the way they move around in a city. ICT is applied fully to flows of information, people and goods. (4) Annette & Solomon in the ambient for social learning : Focus on the learning human in a knowledge based society; the knowledge society leads to increasing quantitative and qualitative demands on knowledge, skills and creativity. This includes, e. g., the pressures towards life-long learning, new ways of learning-by-doing and a growing demand for communication skills or even emotional intelligence. These scenarios have prepared the ground for several research initiatives funded by the European Commission and is one of the important pillars of the general paradigm shift how computers will serve the human in the future. In general it is stated that the AmI vision is characterized by a strong user orientation, whereas the Ubiquitous Computing vision is stronger oriented towards the technologies. Having in mind that Mark Weiser also was thinking of the disappearing computer, because of unobtrusive use it seemed to be difficult to draw a clear line between these concepts [21]: Such a disappearance is a fundamental consequence not of technology, but of human psychology. Whenever people learn something sufficiently well, they cease to be aware of it. When you look at a street sign, for example, you absorb its information without consciously performing the act of reading.... All say, in essence, that only when things disappear in this way are we freed to use them without thinking and so to focus beyond them on new goals. However the awareness of the benefits of user-centric developments is still increasing, and therefore it is the nature of the younger AmIvisiontobemoresensitiveto the importance of people first. Beside this classification, at the end there is a common ground of these two concepts: to make computer support available at any time, any place and in any situation; to enrich the environment with several smaller and connected computer supported entities; to integrate the technology into the general ecology of the environment; to let the computer disappear, so that the user can concentrate on other tasks, rather than the permanent and conscious use of a computer system. The paradigm of Wearable Computing also shares ideas of the AmI vision and it is therefore not sensible to fully separate the research areas. Rhodes defines Wearable Computing as follows [15]: Portable while operational : The most distinguishing feature of a wearables is that it can be used while walking or otherwise moving around. This distinguishes wearable from both desktop and laptop computers. Hands-free use : Military and industrial applications for wearables especially emphasize their hands-free aspect, and concentrate on speech input and heads-up display or voice output. Other wearables might also use chording-keyboards, dials, and joysticks to minimize the tying up of a user s hands. Sensors : In addition to userinputs, a wearable should have sensors for the physical environment. Such sensors might include wireless communications, GPS, cameras, or microphones. 31

3 32 Schwerpunktthema Proactive : A wearable should be able to convey information to its user even when not actively being used. For example, if your computer wants to let you know you have new and who it s from,itshouldbeabletocommunicate this information to you immediately. Always on, always running : By default a wearable is always on and working, sensing, and acting. This is opposed to the normal use of pen-based PDAs, which normally sit in one s pocket and are only woken up when a task needs to be done.... they are designed to be usable at any time with the minimum amount of cost or distraction from the wearer s primary task. A wearable computer user s primary task is not using the computer, it is dealing with their environment with the computer inasecondarysupportrole. According to this definition Wearable Computing also aims to provide unobtrusive computer support at any time, any place, and any situation allowing the user to concentrate on the tasks in his physical environment. In this context Wearable Computing and AmI (as well as Ubiquitous Computing) are heading for very similar services at least from a user s perspective. However from a technological view they are following a different path and they are coming along with very different consequences. Considering the technology, Wearable Computing can be understood as an instantiation of the more general AmI paradigm. The technical realization of an Ambient Intelligence service is not bound to a certain technology. For example, reacting to the behaviour of a user can either be done by detecting the user context with a camera that is installed in a room and that is observing him, or by a sensor in the floor. Information can be brought to a user, e. g., by a display in the table, an interactive whiteboard or even a display in his intelligent wristworn watch. Thinking in terms of Wearable Computing several of the open parameters how to realize a solution are bound to a specific, very user-oriented fashion. Wearables the computer power are always with you and personal body-worn sensors are detecting the context of the user. Interaction, displays, audio interfaces in a first step are individually used by a single person the wearer of the system. Basically, AmI and Wearable Computing go together very well: a person in an AmI environment would use a wearable computer to provide the interaction with the environment. Of course, in different applications the line between the two paradigms may be blurred because of different grades of intelligence either provided by a wearable computer or by an intelligent infrastructure in the environment. As it will be pointed out in the next section, for practical applications with a limited scope it often is the better choice to concentrate the needed ICT functions on a person instead in theenvironment:itmayjustbeless costly to equip the moving person instead all possible environments where a person could move to performing a certain task. 3 Living Labs as a Methodology for Wearable Computing-related Development In the context of a reactivated Lisbon agenda Europe is facing the strong need in making better use of its own research and innovation capacities to guarantee a successful development of Europe s economical and societal challenges, e. g., formulated within the i2010 initiative [6]. The innovation gap between Europe and US but also to the upcoming economies in Asia is widening [3]. Europe is, e. g., weak in transferring scientific excellence to European industries. In this context one important innovation structure are the so called Living Labs addressing a much closer and direct exchange of ideas and views of different stakeholders coming from various organizational backgrounds. The core paradigm of this concept is to empower real endusers to be co-creators to put them in the drivers seat in the very beginning of an innovation process. Rather than being only a genius idea like an invention, innovation is the overall process of inventing and establishing economic reasonable applications of new ideas in practical settings. Thus, a more efficient and serious dialog between industries and science, with a better understanding of the constraints and needs of real world environments is an essential building block for innovation. Living Labs are coming along with a high potential for European Industries paving the ground for innovative ideas, shortening the time-to-market, reducing risks, increasing workers satisfaction andattheendsavingcostsdueto optimized processes and providing new business opportunities. Currently several Living Labs have been started all around Europe realizing some different types of cooperation. Structures like, e. g., Testbed Botnia or Mobile City Bremen [11] concentrate on a close dialog with the end customer of consumer-oriented innovations [5], otherlivinglabsarelocatedinthe domain of industry-oriented innovations. A Corporate Living Lab is a consortium of different stakeholders with a practical, economical, and a research background focusing on the development of technological innovations in order to optimize the industrial and economical methods of working. The Living Lab aims to foster the exchange on the one hand transfer scientific innovations into economical and industrial production processes and on the other hand providing real world environments with a direct connection to the concrete and practical use of new technologies. This bidirectional exchange is an open way of developing new ideas in a holistic user centric innovation process,

4 Wearable Computing: Information and Communication Technology... which tends to provide a great profit margin for the involved stakeholders. The European Integrated Project wearit@work empowering the mobile worker by wearable computing [19; 23] has based its main research methodology on the ideas of these Living Labs. Living Labs are very suitable for the system developments in the field of Wearable Computing: (1) Wearable Computing is still subject of basic research and requires systemic innovation. There is still a need of discussion and studies beyond pure engineering. So, a broader dialog with experts from different backgrounds, covering several disciplines is necessary. Due to its practical nature, wearables should be shaped by real world problems, satisfying practical requirements. (2) Wearable Computing is by definition a user-centric technology. Systems are getting very close into the direct personal context of the users. The question of usability and acceptance by the users is close related to the real application domains. So, practical experience and a very close dialog with the user are essential. (3) Wearable Computing requires ataskintherealworld.due to the concepts of unobtrusive interfaces and the realization of systems that allow the focus on a primary task in the real world, design needs a deep understanding of the specific nature of the real world tasks. Evaluation and optimization of solutions also require a close feedback loop from its applications. (4) Wearable Computing is fragile regarding social acceptance. Wearable computers are still somehow unusual devices. User should not be presented final solutions they have to be informed and educated during the system development. Transparency and dialog is a good way to clarify and communicate the benefits of new technologies, leading to a better acceptance of innovative solutions. In this context Living Labs are a good instrument to direct the innovation process in the field of Wearable Computing and wearit@work already has demonstratedhowthetimetomarketcan be reduced by effective communication. 4 Research Questions Wearable computing systems are easy-to-use personal, mobile computing systems. Living Labs are therefore a suitable approach to develop real life applications for a professional support environment. Beside a focus on user acceptance and usability, nevertheless a couple of technical questions have to be addressed as motivated in the following. As wearable computing systems have to be always on, the energy consumption and an efficient power management are very important and require sophisticated solutions under the mobility aspect. Conventional mobile devices are only used occasionally with direct user interaction. In contrast a wearable computing system provides information constantly like a car navigation system in an ambient way. Information concerning the primary task a user performs is given. Primary tasks can be, e. g., maintaining parts of an aircraft. These tasks require today usually no computer interactions. However, in many cases they are defined by procedures given as paper-based computer output to the users requiring often also the documentation of activities performed. The general assumption of wearable computing is that we can develop software applications supporting a primary task like navigation while driving a car. As the hands and eyes are regularly used to perform a primary task, it is also another distinguishing feature compared to office applications that the interaction with an application has to reflect this and must allow the users to interact with the system in a multimodal way. However, classifying different user environments as in the wearit@work project it becomes obvious that there are differences in the environment, the mobility, andthecognitiveloadoftheuser. Also the amount of manual (primary) activity, the stress level, and the requirement of user interaction with a software application supporting the primary task differ between different tasks (see Table 1 for illustration [10]). Analysing possible software applications supporting different tasks features like the need and possibility of direct user interaction with the software application, the retrieval of supportive information, the recording and sensing of primary task actions, and the need of communication are found to be a further criterion for classification (see Table 2 for illustration [10]). Out of these observations in different Living Labs four key aspects of wearable computing can be derived: energy consumption and power management, multimodal and adaptable user interfaces, sensor-based automatic context detection, and usability and user acceptance. 4.1 Energy Supply and Power Management Energy consumption is a crucial point of wearable computing solutions. User requirements of up to eight hours of use without recharging are common as well as a hot swappable exchange of batteries (without shutting down the system). To achieve this, a sophisticated and efficient power management of all components and any kind of wireless data transmission is required. Data compression techniques have to be applied and an optimal balance between bandwidth 33

5 34 Schwerpunktthema Table 1 User activity classification. Aircraft maintenance Car assembly Healthcare ward round Emergency response Environment Diverse, nonfixed, Static, structured, fixed, Highly structured, static, Unstructured, dynamic, some infrastructure elaborate infrastructure strong infrastructure hazardous, no infrastructure Mobility Nomadic, heterogeneous Room level Nomadic, homogeneous Highly mobile Cognitive load Medium Low High Medium Manual activity Predominantly Predominantly Occasional Occasional Physical strain Some Minimal None Extreme Stress Little Little Moderate, time pressure High Human Computer Little Little Moderate Little interaction Table 2 Wearable Computing Application Software Features. Aircraft maintenance Car assembly Healthcare ward round Emergency response Human Computer Little to moderate Little Moderate Little interaction Retrieval Structured multimedia Structured multimedia Highly structured text, Simple textual or some images graphical information Recording Event sequence, Events with timing Collaborative input of Events, some images performed tasks and/or information complex multimodal annotated videos information Sensing Location, system and Activity, object Location Environmental, location, object state, activity (car) state physiological, some activities Communication/ Minimal, voice Minimal Collaboration between Simple offline messages, Colaboration call with images systems real time voice, occasional images and video and energy consumption has to be found. Duty cycling, reducing the active energy per operation, selecting low-power features, classifiers and implementing power-aware algorithms on top of the processor architecture help to minimize the energy consumption usually supplied by a battery. As the devices are frequently used rechargeable batteries are needed. There is no general approach for the design of an optimal battery at hand, however specific methodologies and solutions are available. In [17] the authors present an empirical approach optimizing a context recognition system with respect to the trade-off between power consumption and recognition performance. In contrast to a straightforward maximization of the recognition rate this means to find an appropriate measure with respect to the envisaged application. As carrying weight is very important, the most convenient energy supply is usually a recent Li-Polymer battery: it combines high energy density with low weight. Many standard sizes are readily available, and batteries can be designed to adapt perfectly to the footprint of the wearable devices. However, the driving forces for battery development were mobile phones and digital cameras during the last years. As their design points differ from those for wearable devices, e. g., in energy consumption over time, there is more effort necessary to develop suitable power supplies adapted well to specific wearable computing devices. 4.2 Wearable User Interfaces Today WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer) user interfaces are ubiquitous. They dominate desktop computers and even mobile devices. However, when used in wearable computing applications this paradigm lacks usability as users must focus on their primary task [19]. This becomes obvious when it would be necessary to use a mouse pointer while operating a power screwdriver. The dual task situation of wearable computing as well as the often changing work environment conditions (e. g., light, noise, use of hands, necessary movement) require specifically adapted interfaces. Thus the user interface must adapt to changing environment conditions and must absolutely take actual work context information into account. An abstract description of the user interface, independent of I/O devices and interaction paradigms is flexible and describes the semantics of an interface instead of specifying its concrete representation and interaction style. Research focuses

6 Wearable Computing: Information and Communication Technology... actually on a common understanding of how interaction should be designed to be applicable in dual task situations where the computer is only secondary [8]. Establishing basic properties for wearable user interfaces acquired knowledge has to be stored for reuse in other applications similar to style guides or widget libraries for desktop environments [22]. 4.3 Context Detection Wearable computing solutions require the ability to model and recognize the user s activity and situation [1]. Context awareness let the system provide proactively the user with the right information at the right time. It is a key feature to reduce the complexity of the user interface. Context awareness requires sensors, on body or in the environment. In car navigation the global positioning system GPS provides enough information for a useful support of the driver. However, when used for pedestrian navigation in a downtown area GPS does not provide sufficient support. Depending on the user s context, e. g., in assembling a car complex sensor environments can be required. There are many different kinds of sensors available like accelerometer, inclination and light sensors, microphone, gyroscope, and RFID readers. Applied to different parts of the body user activities like any kind of movement can be detected by sensors. Sensors in the environment areafurthersourcetorecognizethe user s context. Overall, context awareness requires a number of interconnected modules placed at different body locations. Each module consists of sensors, ADC (Analog to Digital Converter), computing elements, RF (Radio Frequency) circuitry and power supplies (batteries). However, there is still a lot of research needed on processing sensor data, extracting high-level context, representing and making use of the context information. 4.4 User Acceptance and Usability Most wearable computing solutions in the past lacked the necessary user acceptance for a break though; basically for one reason: the wearability of solutions was not given users did and do not like to be wired. To overcome this two basic approaches seem to be appropriate as the textile integration of electronics (sensors, user interfaces, power supply) is for many reasons far from given: Firstly wireless body area networks (Fig. 1) allow to get ridofmostofthewires.thisallows a kind of plug-and-play Open Wearable Computing Architecture; however, wireless head mounted displays (HMDs) are still a research issue whereas wireless interaction devices like wristbands and gloves are at hand (Fig. 2). Secondly a specific wearable computing accessory is required allowing the users to really wear the system with high comfort by easily dressing and undressing it. Although the textile integration as shown in Fig. 2 is aimed at a research issue, user acceptance requires much simpler solutions. As a surprising fact we found in our Living Labs in car production and aircraft maintenance that the supporting aspect of the technology and the increased quality were more emphasized than any concern with the data collected as there is already today a lot of technology in place for supervision. However it became also clear that the later might be an issue when negotiating the introduction Figure 1 Body area network-based Open Wearable Computing Architecture. Figure 2 Textile Wearable Computing Accessories. 35

7 36 Schwerpunktthema Figure 3 Open Wearable Computing Framework. of such solutions with the workers board. 4.5 Open Software Framework Although the application domains and their requirements vary quite a lot a common hardware platform and software framework allow standardization and a unified approach for the application development. The Open Wearable Computing Framework (OWCF) as given in Fig. 3 is a software infrastructure supporting the construction of domain specific applications for wearable devices. It is a tool with guidelines to simplify the software development process, to encourage reuse of software components across different applications, and to promote better software engineering practices. In the wearit@work project the OWCF evolved based on the continuous analysis of end-user requirements. The Spring framework [16] was selected as the core of the OWCF to minimise demand on resources, because of its minimal invasive effect on components, and the related inversion of the control design pattern. It allows for configuration not only of configuration parameters but of configuration of dependencies among components, too. 5 Illustrating the Use of Living Labs In the following we illustrate how Living Labs can support a successful introduction of wearable computing applications in practise. We focus on two aspects: the evaluation of the usability and the user-systeminteraction. 5.1 Evaluation of the Usability To come up with user accepted Wearable Computing solutions a Living Labs approach is useful [2] as these solutions build on devices users have no or only little experience with. These devices can be for communication with sufficiently high data rate and quality. They can include some kind of indoor localization and navigation support, data acquisition including photo and video capabilities as well as the transfer of physiological parameters. Also the information visualization via a head mounted device or enabling hands free operations by use of voice commands, a textile keyboard or gestures fall in this domain. Exemplary scenarios are built with the stakeholders like the ward round in a hospital, the assembly of parts of a car or changing parts in an aircraft maintenance seldom or even never done before. As a side effect Living Labs increase by a strong involvement of all stakeholders from the very beginning the overall feedback on the potential regarding works-processadaptation. Here wearable computing becomes a tool to change work processes. Thus as a concrete example for a hospital ward round a future system should enable nurses to access more information and navigatethroughtheclinicalinformation system during the ward round and should follow a set of codes and norms for users of the wearable devices. As shown in Fig. 4 below for emergency response, different forms of support are at hand: with lowfi paper based models requirements for a more advanced solution are identified. Based on these requirements a virtual environment enables multi-user simulation and can be validated against existing solutions. This virtual simulation environment is capable to be connected to the hardware used during real actions [9]. This allows for realistically simulating events. Communication problems between the firemen taken as an example can be simulated basedonthemodeloftheenvironment contained in the simulator. This approach requires that all stakeholders, e. g., of a hospital or a fire fighting department participate in the design and experimentation of demonstrators for an improved ward round or intervention. Design studies with different user groups like students and teams of nurses and physicians or fire fighters of different hierarchical level deal with different aspects like the usability of hardware components (head mounted displays or wristbands) as well as the user interaction itself by gestures or speech. Robustness of devices and algorithms (e. g., for gesture recognition) and the training of users for the innovative approach are key factors. As the interaction paradigm is new for the users training becomes essential as in the early days of desktop

8 Wearable Computing: Information and Communication Technology... Figure 4 Intervention simulation supporting tactical training of firemen. computing or the GUI. The fear to look or been noticed like a fool wearing the technology or interacting in a magic way is a serious handicap in achieving user acceptance. Training here means also to make user groups accustomed with the new technology. Social aspects are examined based on interviews and video recordings in the Living Lab: As an example in a clinical Living Lab the main advantages as the more efficient work of doctors and nurses during the ward round, together with the related gain in time for personal care to patients, and the more accurate documentation preventing mistakes and errors were identified as also concerns about the system enabling learning to patients and less independent personnel by a calmer organized ward round. In this clinical environment previous experience in other IT projects had left a bad taste and general concerns related to the introduction of new IT solutions were raised. Here we see a clear advantage of the Living Lab creating user acceptance from the very beginning and before the introduction of a new technology. 5.2 User-System Interaction Assembly and maintenance require not only in car production and aeronautics still a lot of highly skilled manual work. Workers receive therefore a preparatory training at Learning Factories or Schools with a theoretical and a practical component. By a wearable computing solution the training is supported by integrating the theoretical training into the practical training. Approximately 5 to 6 hours training of the worker by an experienced trainer is today required, e. g., for the assembly of a Skoda Octavia front light. Studies in a production Living Lab showed that paper based assembly is faster, less erroneous and easier to learn compared to using wearable computing solutions without automatic context detection. However, when using context information wearable computing solutions become advantageous to the use of keyboards and voice information. Taking into account wearable computing giving the possibility of implicit documentation, wearable technology is enhancing the quality and documentation of the production process with a minimal additional effort. See [14] for more details. The use of wearable information technology in working environment needs the consideration of several limitations like constrained spaces and the related motions, uncomfortable working positions, water, heat, and corrosive products in the environment and so on. Issues like security, safety, and confidentiality rules have also to be taken into account. To ensure that wearable computing solutions, e. g., for aircraft maintenance meet the needs of the worker we performed in our maintenance Living Lab experiments with different input modalities like a trackball, a data glove and speech input. The appropriateness of different output modalities as voice and a couple of visual formats like graphics, photos and video sequences were also tested. Furthermore a demonstrator was implemented supporting the removal of seats. The operator is guided through each step of the procedures by the wearable computing solution either in a novice or expert mode. The solution supplies guided, context controlled access to the Aircraft Maintenance Manual and the Individual Parts Catalogue, offering hints on steps to be performed and advice, if necessary. See [24] for more details concerning the experiments. Our observations in this Living Lab were that the maintenance personal liked the technology. However, during the evaluation interviews workers expressed their concerns about an over dependency on the wearable. They recommended providing a back up of printed manuals and checklists, and the periodical in depth re-training of procedures. Furthermore they expressed that collaboration supported by wearables could improve efficiency and autonomy. However, face to face communication would still be necessary. Physical interactions and contact should be retained and promoted. Operators emphasized the need for training and 37

9 38 Schwerpunktthema support when the system is introduced. To avoid disabled, e. g., hearing impaired to be limited to use wearables, workers with disabilities should be considered already in the design phase. It has been said wearables can enhance the professional and self identity of the users. Again the Living Lab approach provided a valuable insight into the requirements of the working environment ensuring that the technology can be successfully put in place. 6 Summary It has been shown that Living Labs bring valuable results when mobile solutions employ Mobile and Wearable Computing technologies, and that they are about to leave their niches and enter the mainstream of the IT world despite the research questions still to be solved. In fact, although computing-onthe-move has all the ingredients to become the next big wave of computerization bringing ICT support to the shop floor, to the many professionals moving around, and to the people away from desktops in need for information support it can be derived from our Living Labs experiences on which aspects we have to focus when starting the introduction of the technology into the working environment. At the end of the day this development will turn hitherto PC-free spots into high-powered ICT work places. We could also show through the examples given here from the wearit@work project that the Living Lab approach paves the way for this development and is essential for its success. Acknowledgments This work has been partly funded by the European Commission through the IST Project wearit@work: Empowering the Mobile Worker by wearable Computing (No. IP ). The authors wish to acknowledge the European Commission for their support. 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10 Wearable Computing: Information and Communication Technology... [21] M. Weiser: The Computer for the 2 Prof. Dr. Otthein Herzog holds the Twenty-First Century. In: Scientific American, Vol. 265, No. 3, Sep 1991, pp [22] H. Witt: A toolkit for context-aware position of a chaired professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Bremen since He directs the TZI, the SFB 637 Autonomous wearable user interface development Coordinating Logistic Processes, and the for wearable computers. In: Doctoral 1 2 Mobile Research Center. Before joining Colloquium at the 9th Int l Symp. on Wearable Computers (ISWC), Osaka, Japan, Oct 18 21, 2005 [23] P. Lukowicz, A. Timm-Giel, M. Lawo, O. Herzog: wearit@work: Towards Real- World Industrial Wearable Computing. In: IEEE Pervasive Computing, Oct Dec 2007, pp academia, he worked with IBM in software development. He received his PhD from the Universität Dortmund in 1976 and is a member of the German Academy of Technical Sciences. Address: see above, herzog@tzi.de [24] M. Lawo, O. Herzog, H. Witt: 1 Dr. Michael Boronowsky is the managing Authentic User Tests in Industrial director of the TZI-Center for 3 Prof. Dr. Michael Lawo is the Techni- Wearable Computing Applications. In: Proc. of the 12 th Int l Conf. on Human Computer Interaction, Beijing, July 2007 [25] E. Aarts, E. Harwig and M. Schuurmans: Ambient Intelli-gence in Denning, J. (edt.): The Invisible Future, McGraw-Hill, New York, p , 2001 Computing Technologies since He is oneofthefoundingmembersofthetzi wearlab and was instrumental in defining the EU Integrated Project wearit@work. He received his PhD from the Universität Bremen. Address: TZI, Universität Bremen, Am Fallturm 1, Bremen, Germany, mb@tzi.de cal Coordinator of the EU Integrated Project wearit@work (IP ). He received his PhD from the University Essen in 1981 and became professor in structural optimization there in Since then, he held multiple top management positions in the computer industry until he joined TZI in Address: see above, mlawo@tzi.de 39