We present a technique for the ergonomic assessment of motor tasks and postures. It is based on movement analysis and it integrates the perceived discomfort scores for joints motions and the time involvement of the different body districts. It was tested on 8 subjects performing reaching movements. The experimental protocol was designed to have an a priori expected comfort ranking, namely, higher values in presence of more uncomfortable tasks. The validation of the Method for Movement and Gesture Assessment (MMGA) in the ergonomic evaluation of a reaching task gave promising results and showed the effectiveness of the index. Possible applications of the method might be the integration into CAD tools and human motion simulation to provide an early comparative evaluation of the ergonomics of the prototyping process and workplace redesign in industry.

The aim of this paper is to report the interaction design process followed by an interdisciplinary team to develop an innovative ICT wearable device for affective video gaming. The process follows Norman and Draper's User Centered Design principles [1] including: functional development, laboratory test of the technology with human subjects, product design, prototype realization and experimentation with final users. The functioning of the device is based on the detection of physiological parameters, e.g., Blood Volume Pulse (BVP), Temperature (T), and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), through electrodes placed on the forehead of the player. These signals are aimed at detecting the emotional state of the player by means of computational intelligence algorithms. This information can be used to modify the behavior of a videogame in order to maintain the player in the desired state of subjective enjoyment. Our goal was to develop a comfortable and easy to use device to avoid disturbs on the emotional state of the player.

This work presents considerations on Ergonomics and Design for Sustainability in the healthcare field based on research experiences of the Technology and Design for Healthcare (TeDH) research group of INDACO (Industrial design, communication, arts and fashion) department of Politecnico di Milano. In order to develop a multidisciplinary approach to design able to answer to specific user needs such as elderly in an environmental sustainable way (1) this paper shows the results we achieved concerning ergonomics and environmental impact in product development (2), the extension of this approach to interior and home design and the advantage of the application of Information Communication Technologies (ICT). ICT can help people with special needs to make their everyday life easier and more safe, at the same time, ICT can make socialenvironmental impact of everyday behavior evident and can be applied to manage sustainability. The specific theme is thus to integrate ergonomics and sustainability competences in the development of Ambient Assisted Living through a Product-Service System approach. The concept of product service system has the potential to improve product performances and services, establish new relations and networks with different actors in order to satisfy user needs and apply a systems approach considering environmental, social and economic factors in the users' environment.

There are currently several systems for home automation and energy management available on the market. These systems are intended to reduce the use of energy, while ensuring optimal and customizable comfort conditions. The advances in technology (Internet of Things, sensors, cloud computing, data processing and thermal modelling) and in the design of interfaces should facilitate the adoption of convenient behaviours by final users, thereby producing more sustainable use of energy at home. Conversely, the effectiveness and efficiency of smart home systems for thermo-regulation is a complex activity, requiring the collaboration of multiple stakeholders and experts. In this paper, the authors report a case study about the design of a system for thermal regulation at home developed in a multidisciplinary research team for research and industrial purposes. The paper reports results including: a discussion on a number of issues involved in the design of smart home solutions for sustainability and on the importance of developing an integrated approach to their design; the needs analysis of users and of their functional requirements based on investigation with residents and profiling; final remarks about the role of User Experience Design methods and tools in the development of smart home solutions, understood as socio-technical systems.

This paper presents the study and the development of a telemonitoring system with the aim to support elderly people living alone. The intent of our new system is to permanently connect the elderly with their relative and caregivers. The tele-monitoring system allows to continuously monitoring the subjects as they were in a hospital and, in case of anomalies in the health state, automatically share and alarm to caregivers and relatives. The continuous monitoring is done using two different subsystems: wearable sensors for biomedical data collection and infrared video cameras for fall detection. The main goal of this study is to develop and test the system prototype not only from a functional point of view, but also from the user acceptability and usability point of view. For this reason this studies was based on a parallel development of acceptability and technical issues; this allows to create an ad-hoc tele-monitoring system for elderly,