Design and Prototyping for Disability. WARNI Case Study

The present paper introduces the methodology applied for the development of Warni, a night alarm for people affected by ALS. The project was developed during the “Intelligent Products” Design Studio, of the Product Design Master Course at the IUAV University of Venice (Romero, Ferrari and Toso, 2018).
WARNI was designed for ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), a neurode- generative disease that leads to the immobilization of all the muscles of the body except the eyes.
According with UCD approach (Norman and Draper, 1986), end-users has been involved in the design process. In collaboration with AISLA (Italian As- sociation of ALS) patients and caregiver communication during night as been recognized as a key problem.
The research is carried out in an Open-source project that allows people affected by ALS to call the assistance of the caregiver during the night-time: it consists in an alarm activated by the movement of eyes of the user that sends an audible alert on the app installed on the caregiver’s smartphone.
The system is based upon an infrared eye-tracking to allow the use during night time, when other communication devices are switched off.
The basic idea also brought attention to the materials used in design and prototyping, finding many useful features in an existing product, specifically the Jansjö lamp by Ikea, in which we found many favorable structural features that, through elaborations and the addition of some electronic components and some 3D printed pieces, allowed us to obtain a reproducible object.