This section discusses the development of Diamond Suit
system. First, the tasks that we foresaw Diamond Suit would be used
for are listed. From these tasks we were able to determine the system
requirements that were essential for the product’s implementation.
Then, low-fidelity prototypes are shown. After that, the process by
which the low-fidelity prototypes were converted into high-fidelity
prototype is described. Finally, the usability testing process is explained.
Task Examples
a) Long-term Shoulder Injury (user is the patient)
John, a 20-year-old minor league baseball player for the Reading Phillies
was the starting pitcher in his game one night. In the middle of the
5th inning, John threw a pitch and grabbed his throwing (right) shoulder
in agonizing pain. After consultation with the team’s trainers
and doctors, John was told he had a serious injury, so he was entered
into a rehabilitation clinic. After being reviewed by the physical
therapist, it was determined that John had torn his rotator cuff.
The physical therapist recommended the Diamond Suit to John after
a short debriefing and consultation about the product. John decided
to give the suit a try and began the process that was described to
him. Weekly checkups and daily workout routines over the course of
10 months brought John’s shoulder back to full strength and
allowed him to start pitching again.
b) Strenuous Activity outside the Workout Routines (user is
the patient)
Bill, a 19-year-old college student had hurt his back while jumping
on a trampoline with friends. After a trip to the doctor, Bill was
advised to enter rehabilitation to repair his back. At his local
rehabilitation center, he was interested in the idea of the Diamond
Suit and decided to give it a try. Bill was fitted with the suit
and was told he would have a short-term workout period in order
to get his lower back to the shape it was in before his injury.
Two weeks into his rehabilitation, Bill heard his doorbell ring
in the middle of his daily workout. While still wearing the suit,
Bill answered the door and signed for a large package from FedEx.
Unaware of how heavy the package was, Bill attempted to lift it
and was immediately alerted by the Diamond Suit that the weight
of the package exceeded the maximum weight he could lift with his
back during his current period of rehabilitation. Bill put the package
down and later had a couple friends bring the package inside his
house for him.
c) Physical Therapist’s Perspective (user is the doctor)
Dr. Smith, a physical therapist for NovaCare, is a licensed operator
of the Diamond Suit. One day, Dr. Smith saw a patient, Ron, who
came to him about a tear in his bicep. After giving Ron the rundown
about the Diamond Suit, including an information session and a short
demo, Ron decided he would like to use the suit for his rehabilitation.
Dr. Smith saw Ron once a week for 4 months. Each week, Ron was questioned
about the workouts and information was exchanged from Ron’s
device to Dr. Smith’s device. Using the information gathered,
Dr. Smith structured the weekly workouts for Ron. At the end of
4 months, the suit had successfully helped repair Ron’s bicep,
and the suit was returned to the rehabilitation center.
d) Hairline Fracture (user is the patient) Dave, a 21-year-old college student had hurt his right hand
while playing basketball with his friends. After a trip to the doctor,
Dave was told that he has a hairline facture in his right hand. He was
advised to enter rehabilitation to heal his hand and to make its muscles
back to their original strength. He had read about Diamond Suit, so
was interested in trying it. He was suited up with the Diamond Suit
and was advised that he would need a long-term workout period in order
to get his right hand in its original shape. After one month into his
rehabilitation, he went for his monthly checkup and the physical therapist
did a complete analysis of him. Due to the workout described to him
by his doctor and daily routines helped Dave to recover his strength
and heal his hand in a course of just one month.
e) Short-term abs Injury (user is the patient)
Ken, a 23-year-old graduate, while doing his abs workout, he ruptured
one of his muscles. He immediately stopped his workout and went
to see his doctor. After consultation with his doctor, Ken was told
that his injury was not that serious. It was just a muscle rupture
but still he was advised to enter in a rehabilitation clinic. After
being reviewed by the physical therapist, Ken was recommended to
use the Diamond Suit. Weekly checkups and daily workout routines
over the course of 2 weeks brought Ken back to his full strength
and back to gym again.
f) Emergency (user is the doctor)
Dr. Steve is a licensed operator of the Diamond Suit. One day, a
patient was brought in emergency. He had bent his back and could
not straight it up. While trying to straight his back, the patient
felt intense pain. After describing the details of the Diamond Suit,
the patient decided that he would like to use the suit for his rehabilitation.
Dr. Steve saw this patient once a week for 6 months. Every week,
Dr. Steve used to get the details of the patient’s workout
and according to his progress change the workout or make the workout
more intense. All this information was exchanged and stored through
the patient and doctor’s device. At the end of 6 months, the
suit had successfully helped repair this patient’s back and
the suit was returned to the rehabilitation center.
System Requirements
Our system requirements will be in two parts. The first part will describe
the system requirements for Diamond Suit itself. The second part will
describe the requirements for the application that interfaces with the
Diamond Suit. This application will be on the physician’s machine.
Diamond Suit Requirements
a) Must absolutely have:
The Diamond Suit itself will be a spandex suit that covers the whole
upper body from neck down to waist (see prototype picture on right).
This suit will be made from neoprene, a stretchy synthetic rubber material.
It must have a series of sensors through out the suit and wired to a
central processing unit, which will send information to the external
device. For the information transfer, the wetsuit will have an integrated
low powered Radio Frequency device.
The PDA-like device attached to the user’s arm will be the main
interface the user will interact with. The device will be constructed
with a hard drive capable of storing at least 5GBs, a WiFi wireless
device which is in accordance with the IEEE 802.11b standard, hardware
that connects to local mobile phone wireless services such as Cingular,
SprintPCS, T-Mobile, or AT&T Wireless. This capability permits the
device to immediately contact an ambulance when it stops receiving a
heart pulse. To power the device, we’ll implement high-capacity
batteries that last at least 8 hours per charge and an A/C adapter to
recharge its batteries. We’ll also install a low powered Radio
Frequency to retrieve data from the body suit. This technology will
feature software that make the suit compose beep sounds as soon as it’s
getting near out of range from the PDA-like device. For visualizing
data from the device, we’ll include a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)
with a backlight capability.
b) Should haves
In addition the aforementioned must-haves, the LCD screen the device
should be sensitive to a stylus or human fingers, in other words, it
must be a touch-screen. It should be equipped with a stylus to navigate
the screen.
c) Could haves
Lastly, we could double the hard drive space to store more data. We
could also embed a radio tuner wired-in along with a headphones jack.
This permits the user to listen to his or her favorite talk shows, or
radio programs while they workout. It also avoids the user from having
multiple devices during workout. The device could also come with a cradle
for neat storage of the device overnight. The device could also come
with a software application for the user. Its use would be to link the
device to the computer so the user can upload his or her mp3s to listen
to during workout.
Doctor’s Application
a) Must absolutely have
The physician’s application will be software to be installed from
a read-only removable media such as a CD-ROM. For the application to
be installed and operated appropriately, the personal computer hosting
to application will be running a working version of Microsoft Windows
2000/XP for the scope of this class. On the product release version,
it would be preferable to develop everything in Java so the application
can work on Windows, Macintosh, Linux and other UNIX Environments. The
computer hosting the application must also be connected to an IEEE 802.11b
access point.
b) Should have
Our software should have an embedded communication encryption to protect
user information being sent back and forth from the PDA-like device
to the physician’s machine. This will prevent network sniffing.
