Tutorial List

On the first day of the ISWC 2002 conference, 7th October, 2002, we will be hosting a number of quality tutorials for attendees to learn more about areas related to wearable computers. See the conference schedule to find out the exact times of the tutorials.

A Tutorial on Wearable Computers for Persons with Disabilities
Maribeth Gandy
Interactive Media Technology Center
Georgia Institute of Techology

The goal of this tutorial is to provide attendees with a survey of issues related to wearable computing for persons with disabilities. Topics to be covered will include a discussion of why accessibility and universal design are important, along with information on current accessibility techniques and relevant legislation. The research activities of the newly established Wireless Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC), which focuses on wireless and mobile devices for people with disabilities, will be summarized. There will also be a detailed look at previous wearable research in the disability domain. The process of designing a wearable system for persons with disabilities will be discussed along with a relevant case study that illustrates some of the unique challenges in this type of research. Lastly, the tutorial will focus on the future directions that wearable computing for disabilities can take with the goal of motivating attendees to consider these issues while carrying out their research. The intended audience for this tutorial includes researchers and developers in wearable or mobile computing who are interested in learning more about how their work can aid those with disabilities. However, a high level of technical knowledge will not be necessary to benefit from this tutorial.

Wearable Computing User Interface Development Tutorial
Lisa Louise Davis, Dan Newell
Independent Consultant and Tangis Corporation

The tutorial will offer design and development recommendations for a range of user interface and usability issues for wearable computing systems. Specific examples will be used to demonstrate how design guidelines developed for the desktop computers must be reconsidered for wearable computers. The instructors will draw upon their real-world experiences to identify and illustrate the unique design challenges presented by wearable user interfaces, including the users’ limited cognitive and sensory resources, the limitations of mobile input and output devices, and the social and situational constraints in which users may need to operate. Potential applications will be discussed for a variety of commercial and industrial purposes, as well as the usability implications of challenging deployment situations, including hazardous, low-light, and noisy environments. The tutorial will cover such interaction technologies as head-mounted displays, touch screens, pointing devices, hardware input controls, and speech user interfaces. The instructors will also provide an example development process, as well as describe several methods available for evaluating wearable systems.

Tutorial on low power communication/computing with today's hardware
Jan-Derk Bakker

In the tutorial I plan to discuss three major points:
- the impact of the different components of a wearable on power consumption
- relative merits of available processors and platforms
- choices available to the user to influence power consumption.

While I intend to go into details on things like per-bit data access cost, the presentation will remain accessible for participants without a background in EE. The bottom line is that I want to make people aware of the choices they have, not only in terms of the hardware they can buy, but also in the impact of algorithm choices on power consumption.

An Introduction to Wearable Computing
Thad Starner
Georgia Institute of Techology

One problem with developing pervasive computing systems is making them, well, ubiquitous. To deploy computers and networking services everywhere that users might travel requires prohibitive expenses in infrastructure and maintenance. However, there is an alternative:wearable computers. By carrying their own infrastructure, users are guaranteed a certain level of service whereever they go. But what should a wearable computer contain? What is the market for such a device, and when will wearable computing products become profitable? For researchers, what are the intellectual contributions that are unique to wearable computers and not shared with laptops or PDAs? This tutorial will provide an intense introduction to the field of wearable computing from both the research and commercial viewpoints. It will highlight both past success stories and upcoming
challenges that can be expected in the coming decade.