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Featured researches published by Alessandra Rinaldi.


International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics | 2017

Design and Smart Technologies for Physical Activity as Key Factors in Promoting Quality of Life and Social Inclusion

Alessandra Rinaldi; Francesca Tosi

Technological innovations offer many opportunities for design in the context of wearable computers and smart objects and their interaction with user and with ubiquitous computing systems. These technologies can be used to make new products and services designed to collect, increase and share information, knowledge, and emotion, through platforms, which support higher social awareness. If applied to the field of wellness, they can interact among each other, with the network and with the person, to drive and assist people, including socially vulnerable groups, towards an active and dynamic life, and they can become a means for monitoring the state of the user’s wellbeing and health. The aim of the research was to use the strategies of Human Centred Design to identify innovative scenarios and solutions able to involve people in an increasingly active and healthy life, as a commitment towards oneself and as a social responsibility.


Advances in intelligent systems and computing | 2016

From “Liquid Kitchen” to “Shared Kitchen”: Human-Centred Design for Innovative Services of Social Inclusion in Food Consumption

Alessandra Rinaldi; Francesca Tosi; Daniele Busciantella Ricci

The world population is progressively ageing with some clear social implications. People will live longer and also the family structure will change. The emerging socio-cultural trends are opening up great opportunities for innovation in the sphere of contemporary living. The need for a greater mobility and the nomadism now demanded by work, influence people’s lifestyles and consumption models. As regards to the home, flexibility, adaptability and versatility are the emerging characteristics, and these factors also affect the kitchen environment. In parallel to this, urban space experiences of participation and sharing are multiplying, and new social practices are spreading. These aspects are also connected to the way people prepare and consume food. The Kitchen 4.0 research project can be placed within this macro-context. It aims to define a design-orienting scenario which affects the way of preparing and consuming food through the definition of a kitchen-sharing service.


Work-a Journal of Prevention Assessment & Rehabilitation | 2012

Experimenting new design languages in contemporary home design

Francesca Tosi; Alessandra Rinaldi

The changes in society at the beginning of this millennium are giving rise to deep transformations in the behavioural trends and tastes of home users, as well as in their lifestyles and consumption patterns. This opens up a wide range of opportunities for innovation within the context of contemporary home design. Due to the emergence of new user profiles, new needs and models are coming to the attention of designers and manufacturing companies. Just think about the new needs resulting from the changing composition of households, new forms of cohabitation and the contemporary multi-ethnic society.


International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics | 2018

Wellness for all: Novel design scenarios and concepts of products-systems for an inclusive user experience in indoor physical activity

Francesca Tosi; Giuseppe Fedele; Alessia Brischetto; Mattia Pistolesi; Alessandra Rinaldi

Today’s aging phenomena is bringing about important changes in the make-up of our population with consequential need for assistance and cures, thus substantially increasing the costs sustained by society. The policies of the European Community aim to maintain general health and to promote life styles capable of sustaining a level of self sufficiency and at the same time an “intelligent” process of aging, where one remains active and healthy for as long as possibile. The education to physical activity and to sports is a very important objective, which require the development of a conscious attitude of citizens towards their own health. With emphasis on the ergonomics of design and on methods of innovation, Human Centered Design designates likely scenarios in the near future and proposes possibile solutions which concentrate on needs and expectations, allowing one to maintain an active life, through wellness and prevention. This paper presents the results of the “Smart Running” workshop, promoted by the Laboratory of Ergonomics and Design (LED) of the University of Florence in collaboration with Technogym, a leading-edge company that develops fitness equipment for any physical activity. The projects represent innovative solutions for indoor running, particularly intent on involving an increasing number of participants.


International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics | 2018

Playgrounds for All: Practical strategies and guidelines for designing inclusive play areas for children

Alessia Brischetto; Francesca Tosi; Alessandra Rinaldi

To date, outdoor game equipment and playground facilities worldwide are increasingly oriented towards a wide range of solutions in support to gaming activities for children of any age, independently from their motor, cognitive and social impairments. However, due to the complexity of variables interplaying between product demands and user capabilities, many efforts are still needed for making games and playgrounds as much as possible inclusive. The present work proposes a novel methodology useful to designers and other stakeholders for predicting the degree of user exclusion when performing play activities. User trials, focus groups, interviews together with the analysis of accessibility standards, disability descriptors by ICF, and Task Analysis were used for cross-correlating the required tasks with user capabilities. This led to creating an evaluation tool useful to get an immediate feedback and reliable information on the level of inclusiveness of any type of game equipment and user disability. It revealed to be also effective for assessing personal and environmental factors of interest and identifying design requirements.


International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics | 2018

Supporting Inclusive Approaches in Service Design with Netnography

Daniele Busciantella Ricci; Alessandra Rinaldi; Francesca Tosi

This work is a part of a wider research about the inclusion in the Sharing-Based Services conceptual framework. The research presented in this paper was driven from a reflection on the ability of this kind of services to be inclusive. The main objective was discovering design domains for inclusive Sharing-Based Services detecting problems, needs and peculiar cases of online communities engaged in these services. For this reason, the netnography method was adopted to conduct a qualitative research with the aim to gain insights about inclusion and exclusion concepts on selected online forums related to platform in the Sharing-Based Services conceptual framework. The research insights were reported in the paper and they were used as a first reflection to conceptualize five design domains for inclusive services.


Congress of the International Ergonomics Association | 2018

Wearable Devices and Smart Garments for Stress Management

Alessandra Rinaldi; Claudia Becchimanzi; Francesca Tosi

Wearables are the cutting edge of electronic devices; as they are miniaturized, people can directly wear them, generating a continuous interaction with computers. The implementation of wearables in everyday life is going to change completely human behaviours. These devices create human-computer interaction potentialities that can be addressed to several directions: taking care of people, leading people to a different behaviour model for changing social dynamics, turning these ubiquitous computers into a “collective wearable”.


Congress of the International Ergonomics Association | 2018

Innovative Scenarios and Products for Sport Outdoor: The Challenge of Design for Citizens’ Wellness and Health

Francesca Tosi; Giuseppe Fedele; Alessia Brischetto; Mattia Pistolesi; Daniele Busciantella Ricci; Alessandra Rinaldi

Increasing physical activity and physical education are very important issues to overcome ageing population, but require the development of a conscious attitude of citizens towards their own health. Ergonomics for Design and methods of the Human-centred design and User Experience may allow outlining possible solutions for increasing human expectations towards active life, wellness and prevention. This paper presents the results of the Wellness Outdoor workshop, promoted by the Laboratory of Ergonomics and Design (LED) of the University of Florence in collaboration with Technogym, a leading-edge company that develops fitness equipment for any physical activity. Main aims of the workshop were to define and design novel scenarios and systems concepts for outdoor fitness. To this aim, we followed a first research step based on focus groups, personas methods, user observations and Task Analysis, which led to the definition of user needs and context-of-use. Then, brainstorming activities driven by scenarios-based design and parallel design sessions proved to be effective for outlining inputs and ideas generation. Finally, in the present work four system concepts, named S.O.Fiber, Hexagon Space, Outdoor Training and Develop, are presented.


Congress of the International Ergonomics Association | 2018

Ergonomics and Design: Neonatal Transport Incubator for Premature or Pathological Newborn Transportation

Ester Iacono; Francesca Tosi; Alessandra Rinaldi

For the past few years, cultural and technological progress has allowed premature newborns greater possibilities for survival. Since not all the infants are born in hospitals that can provide appropriate treatments, 2–2,5% of newborns need to be transferred. The aim of this design research is to give comfort to the newborn, as well as to give healthcare professionals better working conditions in order to facilitate their interactions and reduce errors during all the transportation phases. This research used methodologies of “Human-Centred Design”, focusing on direct and indirect users’ needs, skills and different points of view of professionals involved in the design or planning of the products/services. By conducting field surveys at the Meyer Children’s Hospital, useful data has been collected to address some of the problems related to neonatal transportation by combining users’ needs with technology. The collected information allowed an analysis of users’ behavior, their needs and the frequency of errors during the performance of tasks, evaluating critical issues of actual products/systems and defining new requirements. The research has focused on understanding the current user incubator interface and on evaluating its emotional impact on users. Indeed, incubators can be very unwieldy and hard to manage during transportation. This approach has led to developing new solutions to better meet the needs of healthcare professionals. By synthesizing the obtained results, it has been possible to set up new solutions which lead to the design of a new incubator for premature or pathological newborn transportation.


International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics | 2017

Inclusion in Sharing-Based Services (I-SBS): An Analytical Tool

Daniele Busciantella Ricci; Hua Dong; Alessandra Rinaldi; Francesca Tosi

The collaborative economy involves many different fields and it is difficult to define what activities are comprised. General impact evidence is inconclusive. However, some of them address problems about indirect discriminations, labour security and inequalities, the lack of regulation. Considerations about ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’ states are needed for services involved in shared consumption. The authors propose the ‘Sharing-Based Services’ (SBS) conceptual framework to study and analyse a set of services. In particular, this paper describes an analytical tool (I-SBS) comprising an approach and the activities to consider the aspects of the ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’ in SBS. The series of design workshops to evaluate the tool has been described in detail. The analytical tool, the design results, and the process of design workshops are presented as the main results.

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Maurizio Caon

University of Bedfordshire

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