Photo by Amber Kipp
Improving Wearability of Animal Biotelemetry
This was the doctoral project of Dr Patrizia Paci, between October 2015 and October 2019, supervised by Prof Clara Mancini and Prof Blaine Price.
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Overview
Animals are often fitted with devices that track their movements, behaviours and vital signs for conservation, research and husbandry purposes. However…
•animal wearers - the primary stakeholders - have no control over their use
•devices can interfere with their body (e.g. injuring or trapping them) and activities (e.g. slowing them down or disrupting their camouflage), thus impacting their welfare and the quality of recorded data
•and existing guidelines for designing these devices still tend to be rather coarse and ad hoc.
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This is problematic both on ethical and scientific grounds, as the animal’s welfare is undermined and the validity of collected data is biased. Even the most common tracking collars sold on the pet market can cause adverse effects on animal wearers.
Anoek2012, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Photos by Patrizia Paci
A study with cats
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In an evaluation of two different off-the-shelf tracking collars, Patrizia observed 13 cats under three different randomised conditions: while they where wearing one or the other tracker and while they were wearing nothing. The cats scratched and shook their heads and bodies more when wearing the devices than when not wearing anything. Their behaviour during the observations highlighted flaws in the design of the devices, and suggested implications as to which elements of the trackers could be re-designed to improve the wearability of these and other devices.
A design framework
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The aim of the project was to provide designers with a tool that would enable them to develop biotelemetry devices in a wearer-centred way and thus improve their wearability. The project delivered a wearer-centred design framework to establish requirements for designing animal wearables that are consistent with the needs of wearers. The framework was evaluated through design workshops and the redesign of animal wearables, highlighting significant wearability improvements against their off-the-shelf counterparts. The framework can be used to identify species-specific wearability requirements for new wearable devices, or to aid the analysis and refinement of requirements emerging from evaluation studies.
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Behavioural observation of cats wearing a tracker Patrizia re-designed using the same electronic components but applying the framework showed significantly better wearability.
Further readings
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Paci, P., Mancini, C., Price, B. (2020). Understanding the Interaction Between Animals and Wearables: the Wearer Experience of Cats. International Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, ACM DIS2020, ACM Press. Honorable Mention
Paci, P., Mancini, C., Price, B. (2019). Designing for wearability: an animal-centred framework. International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction, ACI2019, in co-operation with ACM, ACM Digital Library.
Paci, P., Mancini, C., Price, B. (2019). Wearer-Centered Design for Animal Biotelemetry: Implementation and Wearability Test of a Prototype. Proc. International Symposium on Wearable Computing, ACM ISWC’19, ACM Press, pp. 177-185.
Paci P. A wearer-centred framework to design for wearability in animal biotelemetry. PhD Thesis, The Open University
Paci, P., Mancini, C., Price, B. (2017). The Role of Ethological Observation for Measuring Animal Reactions to Biotelemetry Devices. Proc. Fourth International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction, ACI’17, ACM Digital Library, to appear.
Paci, P., Mancini, C., Price, B. (2016). Designing for Wearability in Animal Biotelemetry. Proc. International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction, ACI2016, ACM Press.
Paci, P., Mancini, C., Price, B. (2016). Towards a Wearer-Centred Framework for Animal Biotelemetry. Symposium on Animal-Computer Interaction. Proc. Measuring Behaviour’16, Dublin University Press, pp. 440-443.