For our Master’s Thesis my group and I investigated how a bigger focus on product experience during the design process of assistive technologies could potentially influence the use of the final product. Via a pilot study, we found that assistive technologies are often purely functional, without any focus on the experience of using the product.

To investigate if the end users would like a product better, if there was extra focus on the product experience during the design process, we developed two prototypes with the exact same basic functionality; a classic assistive technology and an assistive technology with extra focus on product experience in the design process.

To make a long story short, we saw big improvements in the use of the prototype with more focus on product experience. In close cooperation with a school which is attended by students with varying degrees of impairments, we found that the added focus on product experience made the interaction between the students and the prototype more fun and enjoyable in general. Additionally we found that some of the students, who could normally not focus on a task for longer than 3-5 minutes, were focused for more than 20 minutes.

For a more in-depth explanation, feel free to contact me, or read the full thesis.