A pilot study on the design considerations and user impressions of an assistive affordable device

Abstract

PRESSMATIC is a portable electromechanical device which was designed to assist people whose manual dexterity has been impaired for any reason (ageing, illness, paralysis, etc.). Its goal is restoring the loss of functionali ty of the thumb and forefinger in certain tasks that require pinching movements (e.g. grabbing scissors, tweezers, etc.). In this paper, a study on design considerations and user experience of PRESSMATIC is present ed. For that purpose, pilot trials were conducted at healthcare facilities. Target users evaluated several prototypes of PRESSMATIC and their opinions were registered. Based on this, the original design specifications were reviewed. First, the methodology used in the study is presented. Par ticipants, devices and tasks are described too. Then, trial results are shown and the system requirements will be discussed taking into account user ex perience. Finally, the study conclusions are shown.