Wearable Technologies: a Roadmap to the Future

Wearable technologies have a large potential to amplify human abilities. Thanks to their close contact to the human body, their miniaturized dimensions and continuous data collection, wearables are versatile, meeting system requirements across domains. Wearable technologies have grown in quantity and quality over the past decades, gaining popularity. However, to foster users' acceptance and sustain their engagement, wearables must be useful, and their interface design must carefully consider user interaction on the go as well as transient requirements from diverse contexts of use. Without such design considerations, not only wearable technologies may become a burden for end users, but also abandonment rates increase. Through illustrative examples of wearable technologies, in this talk I provide an overview of wearable computing, I will discuss the applications, challenges and opportunities in the design of user interfaces for wearable interaction. I conclude the talk presenting a roadmap for next-generation wearables.