Embedding Smart Materials into Products to Motivate the User: Flexers, a Smarter Approach to Finger Splinting

Abstract

Embedded intelligence is radically changing the way designers conceptualize and develop technological artifacts. The use of smart materials to design products are uncovering new ways to interact with users so as to engage, entertain and inform them, coding new languages of communication. This study investigates how Smart Materials could support the monitoring of the user's health condition in rehabilitation situations through an embedded input/output system, and how the occurring feedback could be perceived as unobtrusive, easy to understand and motivating. In this study, Flexers, an interactive finger splint is presented which includes adaptive and sensitive materials as a vehicle to achieve an intuitive interaction that promisingly shapes the occurring product experience with renewed engagement of the user. The results suggest that the use of smart materials combined with light based feedback could be used as a motivating tool for engaging the user in the rehabilitation activity.