As a product of new demands on mobility and technological progress, including continuing miniaturization of computer components (Peercy 2000), the category of wearable computer emerged in the last decades (Boronowsky et al. 2008). Wearable devices are directly worn on the users’ body and hence provide unique characteristics as they are permanently active and designed for mobile use (Rhodes 1997; Starner 2001; Dvorak 2007; Witt 2007). These microcomputers can assist the user in a broad range of everyday activities or work processes and assist them through (proactive) support (Dvorak 2007). The class of wearable computer is composed of clothing with integrated electronic systems and devices like smart glasses and smartwatches.
Smartwatches currently dominate the wearable computer market due to their positive attitude and perceived values (Hsiao / Chen 2018; Rawassizadeh et al. 2014). They exhibit a high acceptance in the social environment, and the users feel comfortable wearing the device due to the high similarity to ordinary watches (Choi / Kim 2016). Smartwatches are assembled of standard computer hardware such as a processor, memory, and battery. They are also equipped with various sensors to perceive the environment and wireless interfaces for communication (e.g., W-LAN, Bluetooth, or GSM). Besides, they can be operated with a touchscreen, voice control, motion gesture control, or several hardware buttons as well as a digital lunette (Bieber et al. 2012; Chuah et al. 2016; Pascoe / Thomson 2007).
Smartwatches delimit from other mobile devices with a similar shape like fitness trackers since they run a hardware-independent operating system, which can be extended by installable applications (Rawassizadeh et al. 2014). Although smartwatches can be coupled with a smartphone and interplay with the remote application, we exclusively consider standalone devices rather than smartphone accessories due to the restrictive dependence of another device (Krey et al. 2016). In this paper, we rely on our following definition linking all relevant aspects of a smartwatch:
94 Studies: Smartwatch-based IS Supporting Mobile Employees Executing Manual Work
A smartwatch is a standalone, miniaturized computer in the form of a wristwatch equipped with a touchscreen as well as hardware buttons for operation, various sensors to gather information about the real-world context, and wireless interfaces for communication. It runs a hardware-independent operation system which functionality can be extended by custom applications.
Smartwatches are worn directly on the users’ body, are always available, and can therefore demand a users’ attention proactively with haptic feedback in the form of vibrations to initiate interactions (e.g., reaction to a notification), independently of a specific location or time (Boronowsky et al. 2008; Jiang et al. 2015; Rhodes 1997). Nevertheless, smartwatches are usually limited to simple input and output options during the operation through a user due to the small form factor (Malu / Findlater 2015). Besides, a smartwatch can permanently gather information about the environment (e.g., for context detection) or the person wearing it in the background using, for example, accelerometers, gyroscopes, microphones, optical sensors (e.g., for pulse measurement), contact sensors (e.g., for temperature measurement), barometers, as well as ambient light sensors (Reeder / David 2016).
The utilization of smartwatches in the corporate context is a recent research subject and can take many different forms. Research on wearable computers started more than 50 years ago (Thorp 1998; Rhodes 1997). Most research contributions target (1) technical aspects like sensor requirements for activity recognition (Bieber et al. 2013) or expanded input expressivity through mechanical interaction (Xiao et al. 2014) on smartwatches, (2) designing applications in private or business contexts such as a smart-glasses-based learning system (Hobert / Schumann 2017b), (3) the added value of wearable computers like studies about augmented reality-based information systems (Berkemeier et al. 2019), a smart glasses-based process modeling recommender system (Fellmann et al. 2018), industrial deployment of wearable computer in the industry (Lukowicz et al. 2007), or the use of wearable and augmented reality technology in industrial maintenance work (Aromaa et al. 2016) as well as (4) usability aspects regarding smartwatch applications like the usabilityWatch framework (Zenker / Hobert 2020). The unique characteristics enable smartwatches to allow permanent access to the digital workplace, inform employees proactively, strengthen collaboration with an immediate exchange of information, guide employees with respect to the context through processes, and support workflows in an incidental and hands-free way which was not possible with recent hardware. This is particularly important for mobile employees performing manual work (Satyanarayanan 1996; Yuan et al. 2010).
In the practical domain, some companies also presented approaches in the form of several smartwatch-based products such as MeisterTask (MeisterLabs GmbH 2020), Hipaax TaskWatch (Hipaax LLC 2020), aucobo (aucobo GmbH 2020), and WORKERBASE (WORKERBASE GmbH 2020). These products can manage tasks, show notifications of the enterprise systems, or provide special smartwatch devices made for industrial use. However, to the best of our knowledge, available products have a limited range of functionality, do not provide any scientific background, or are not eligible for scientific studies since the source code cannot be accessed.
4.3 Research Design
With the ultimate goal to understand how to design smartwatch-based information systems to support mobile employees executing manual work in the corporate context, we present a mixed-methods research design. We traverse a design science process composed of five design cycles until saturation of design knowledge is reached, as illustrated in Figure 31. In the end, we propose a nascent design theory, according to Gregor / Jones (2007), as a level three targeted design science contribution (Gregor / Hevner 2013).
Figure 31. Research design
During extensible literature analysis and a series of workshops that we conducted in summer 2017 with domain experts from a various range of industrial production facilities, we elaborated convenient use cases for the utilization of smartwatches that are representative and differ in their characteristics. We started with a production scenario composed of maintenance and quality assurance (Zenker / Hobert 2019). To design a software-artifact, we applied a research process inspired by the design science research model of Peffers et al. (2007), including (1) problem identification, (2) objectives of a solution, (3) design and development, (4) demonstration and (5) evaluation. With the knowledge gathered during the design and evaluation, we first extended the scope of possible use cases and second transferred the software solution and the underlying principles to the subsequent design cycles. In this way, we traversed four further cycles covering the use cases support (Zenker et al. 2020b), security service (Zenker 2020), and logistics and design and evaluate enhanced and adapted smartwatch-based
1. PROBLEM
4th DSR Cycle Logistics Mobile employees in logistics scenarios require free hands
96 Studies: Smartwatch-based IS Supporting Mobile Employees Executing Manual Work
information systems. As we created several complementary situated implementations representing level one design science contributions (Gregor / Hevner 2013) in the first four design cycles, we generalize our findings in the fifth design cycle to elaborate design principles and develop a level two design science contribution (Gregor / Hevner 2013). Finally, we elaborate on this generalization and propose a nascent design theory according to Gregor / Jones (2007) describing how to design smartwatch-based information systems to support corporate processes and contribute a level three directed design science contribution (Gregor / Hevner 2013).