Structuring Human Augmentation Within Product Design

Abstract

Human augmentation is a thriving research field that aims to amplify human abilities through the development of technological improvements as an integral part of the human body. Human augmentation products may be made for anyone, ranging from healthy users wanting to enhance their human abilities to users who face temporary or permanent disabilities, physical impairments, or perilous situations that oblige them to use these products.This article attempts to introduce readers to the domain of human augmentation by providing a thorough formulation of the concept and its related terms to develop a more solid structural basis. Additionally, a categorical and dimensional classification of the field was given. Based on these findings, we then proposed a novel framework in the form of a diagrammatic presentation of both classifications, which could enable product designers to better understand and characterize the type of human augmentation product they are designing by determining its location in the diagram. Finally, the proposed framework was evaluated by introducing and classifying several significant human augmentation products most of which have proven to successfully exceed human abilities.

Microsoft HoloLens 2 in Medical and Healthcare Context: State of the Art and Future Prospects

“…The full texts of 83 papers assessed for eligibility were carefully analyzed. Thirteen articles [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ] were excluded due to the exclusion criteria (1), one contribution [ 29 ] due to the exclusion criteria (2), 17 scientific results [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ] due to the exclusion criteria (3) and 5 [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 ] contributions due to the exclusion criteria (4). Finally, only 47 studies were included in the quantitative synthesis.…”

Bridging a sensory gap between deaf and hearing people–A plea for a situated design approach to sensory augmentation

“…Sensory augmentation technology, a specific type of human enhancement technology (De Boeck and Vaes, 2021), however, may be more suitable to help bridge this sensory gap (van Dartel and de Rooij, 2019).…”

“…This could be done by providing sensory augmentations that enable deaf and hearing people to sense signals that neither person is able to sense with their biological senses (Berta, 2020). For example, the artwork in Figure 1 could hypothetically be adapted to be more aesthetically pleasing, e.g., a more balanced composition (McManus et al, 2011), when using an augmentation that extends color vision to sensing infrared and ultraviolet light (De Boeck and Vaes, 2021), than without. It is conceivable that well-chosen augmentations can enable a shared sensory experience between deaf and hearing that bypasses the potential challenges that deaf and hearing people run into during an encounter.…”

Social Earplugs: A Case Study on Integrating Human Augmentation in Hearing Protection

“…Moreover, the interdisciplinarity of the field implies a multitude of possibilities for enhancing an individual's sensory, physical, cognitive or social capabilities. As a previous study concluded, augmentation of users' social ability has not been thoroughly studied to date, despite its considerable future value (De Boeck & Vaes, 2021). Therefore, social augmentation is the focus of this study, which aims to enhance users' social capabilities by supporting collaboration, empathy, interaction and communication through wearable technology (Lee et al, 2018).…”