Heuristic evaluations of back support, shoulder support, hand grip strength support, and sit-stand support exoskeletons using universal design principles

Alejandra Martinez; Laura Tovar; Carla Irigoyen Amparan; Karen Gonzalez; Prajina Edayath; Priyadarshini Pennathur; Arunkumar Pennathur

doi:10.48550/arxiv.2405.20819

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Heuristic evaluations of back support, shoulder support, hand grip strength support, and sit-stand support exoskeletons using universal design principles

Alejandra Martinez, Laura Tovar, Carla Irigoyen Amparan, Karen Gonzalez, Prajina Edayath, Priyadarshini Pennathur and Arunkumar Pennathur

arXiv.org

Cornell University

05/31/2024

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2405.20819

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Preprint (Author's original)This preprint has not been evaluated by subject experts through peer review. Preprints may undergo extensive changes and/or become peer-reviewed journal articles. Open Access

Abstract

Occupational exoskeletons promise to reduce the incidence of musculoskeletal injuries; however, we do not know if their designs allow universal use by all workers. We also do not know how easy the tasks of assembling, donning, doffing, and disassembling exoskeletons are. The purpose of our study was to heuristically evaluate a back support, a shoulder support, a handgrip strength support, and a sit-stand exoskeleton for how well they are designed for universal use when assembling, donning, doffing, and disassembling the exoskeleton. Seven evaluators used universal design principles and associated criteria to independently evaluate and rate four exoskeletons when assembling, donning, doffing, and disassembling the devices. The rating scale was a Likert-type scale, where a rating of 1 represented not at all, and a rating of 5 represented an excellent design with respect to the universal design criteria for the task. The results indicate that providing perceptible information to the user, making the design equitable to use for a diverse set of users, making the design simple and intuitive to use with adequate feedback, and designing to prevent user errors, and when errors are made, allowing the user to recover quickly from the errors, were rated poorly. Assembling and donning tasks presented the most challenges.

Computer Science - Human-Computer Interaction

Details

Title: Subtitle: Heuristic evaluations of back support, shoulder support, hand grip strength support, and sit-stand support exoskeletons using universal design principles
Creators: Alejandra Martinez
Laura Tovar
Carla Irigoyen Amparan
Karen Gonzalez
Prajina Edayath
Priyadarshini Pennathur
Arunkumar Pennathur
Resource Type: Preprint
Publication Details: arXiv.org
DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2405.20819
eISSN: 2331-8422
Publisher: Cornell University; Ithaca, New York
Language: English
Date posted: 05/31/2024
Academic Unit: Industrial and Systems Engineering; Nursing
Record Identifier: 9984633360202771

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