wearable technology Archives - Page 2 of 6

A Q&A with Medical Device Engineer Ivan Lin

Spotlight articles shine a light on designers, engineers, researchers, and creative thinkers we admire and the ideas shaping design today.

Designing wearable technology is one thing. Designing something people actually want to wear is another. When a product needs to move with the body, accommodate different shapes and sizes, and remain comfortable throughout the day, even the smallest design decisions can have an enormous impact.

Portrait of Ivan Lin, medical device engineer specializing in wearable technology and product development. — Ivan Lin, medical device engineer specializing in wearable technology, product development, and human-centered design.

This month, our Spotlight series explores Constructing Fit: Designing for Bodies in Motion through a conversation with Ivan Lin, a medical device engineer whose work bridges technology, product development, and the complex challenges of designing for the human body.

Ivan and the Interwoven Design team have collaborated on medical wearable design projects, navigating everything from integrating rigid electronics with soft textiles to balancing comfort, manufacturability, and cost. His engineering perspective brings a valuable dimension to the conversation about fit, particularly when the success of a medical device depends on whether someone is willing to wear it.

We sat down with Ivan to discuss why engineers need to embrace imperfection, what happens when users behave differently than expected, and why the most successful wearable products begin with the human experience.

Q:

Tell us a little about your career. How did you move from a traditional engineering background into developing wearable products, and how has that experience changed the way you approach design?

A:

I feel like the not-so-sexy answer is that I blundered into it.

The medical device industry is very interesting. It’s this unusual little part of the universe, and the wearables portion is even more so.

I think wearables are often treated as just an accessory. The primary device is what gets the focus until it’s almost too late, and then suddenly you need a wearable in time for launch.

Once you realize that the wearable is the thing that has the everyday touchpoint with your end user, the patient, it changes how you think about its importance. It’s something they interact with day in and day out, sometimes up to 24 hours a day. Fit and comfort become paramount.

Q:

Medical wearables are often developed around the technology first, with fit addressed later. Why do you think that approach is problematic?

A:

I think wearables are often an afterthought in the medical device industry. The primary device gets all the focus until it’s almost too late, and then someone needs to put together a wearable in time for launch. That seems to be a common approach throughout the industry.

At Nevro, with our second- and third-generation products, we recognized that gap and decided we needed to build the wearable into the development process from the start.

Once you realize that the wearable is the thing that has the everyday touchpoint with your end user, the patient, it should become one of the most important things you’re thinking about. It’s what they have to interact with day in and day out, sometimes up to 24 hours a day. Fit and comfort become paramount because that’s what they have to deal with.

Q:

The human body doesn’t behave like a predictable mechanical system. What’s something you’ve learned about designing for the body that challenged your engineering instincts?

A:

My ability to accept imperfection. I think most engineers, especially coming out of school, have the instinct to find the perfect fix or the perfect solution.

With wearables, you have to accept imperfection. You have to look for features, designs, and fits that cover a broad range of bodies, and you have to be flexible. You can’t design things with extremely tight tolerances. There has to be some give, and your product has to function with those imperfections.

Q:

And by imperfection, you mean recognizing that no two bodies are exactly alike? Rather than designing something to fit one person perfectly, you’re designing to accommodate a range of different bodies?

A:

Correct. And especially when you add motion. If the human body were static, you could design something to fit two different bodies, even if they weren’t quite the same. But when you add motion, it introduces an entirely new dimension.

We’ve experienced that with products worn around the thigh. They might fit well on two different bodies when standing still, but once those people start walking, differences in musculature and muscle tone can change the fit considerably.

Q:

Wearable products often combine rigid electronics with flexible textiles. What’s the biggest challenge in integrating hard and soft goods into a system that moves with the body?

A:

I think the best approach is to allow the soft textiles to be the elastic, conformable part of the system. The biggest challenge is that you don’t always have that flexibility.

Close-up of a Nevro lower limb wearable with a black adjustable elastic strap and an external power supply holder secured around the leg. — The Nevro EPS Lower Limb Harness combines soft textiles and an adjustable strap system to support a secure, comfortable fit.

One of the hardest things is designing good detachable interfaces between rigid electronics and soft, pliable textiles. Those interfaces can disrupt the aesthetics, add bulk, and introduce complexity, especially when you’re trying to protect the electronics.

For one of our products, the unexpected solution was simply to create a slightly undersized pocket that we could slip the device into. Rather than developing a complicated mechanical interface, we used the stretch of the textile to hold the device securely.

It worked well for what we needed, and we were able to hide the device pretty effectively. Sometimes the simplest solution is the right one.

Q:

Engineers are trained to solve problems with measurable outcomes, but ergonomic testing often reveals how subjective comfort and fit can be. How do you reconcile what the data tells you with what a person says they feel?

A:

That’s a hard one. I think it comes down to how you structure your usability studies and how specific your questions are.

If you’re simply asking someone, “How’s your comfort?” That’s too broad. You need to drill down and ask more specific questions that help you understand what they’re experiencing.

You can start with purely subjective feedback, but as you iterate the design and gather more information, you should begin combining subjective and quantitative measures.

As you get further into development, you’ll have better ways of describing the experience and more specific categories that you can evaluate. The key is to make that subjective feedback useful in guiding the design.

Q:

We’ve worked together on medical wearable prototyping and development, where seemingly small design decisions had a significant impact on the user experience. Can you recall a discovery that changed the direction of a project?

A:

Definitely. That discovery is ultimately what led us to Interwoven Design.

We had been looking at existing wearable products that could hold a device around the waist, positioned behind the back. We explored jogging belts and similar products, trying to figure out how to accommodate a wide range of waist sizes.

We developed something that was essentially a belt with stretch material and a buckle. The idea was that users would tighten it until it was just snug, then secure it with Velcro. We even included instructions telling them to make it just snug.

That was not what happened.

Instead, people would really crank down on the belt, stretching it until it was uncomfortably tight. Then they’d complain that the belt was uncomfortable.

We thought using something familiar, like a belt buckle, would make it intuitive. But it actually backfired.

And these were people testing it in-house, people who were already familiar with medical devices and thinking about comfort. We realized that if they were doing this, our end users were probably going to do the same thing.

As an engineer, you’re already thinking about these issues in manufacturing. You consider how an assembly operator might do something differently than intended, and you develop processes to prevent mistakes. You have to think the same way about your end user.

Q:

Fit is often something companies try to refine toward the end of development. How should the process change when fit is considered alongside the technology from the beginning?

A:

You really can’t treat it as an afterthought. Mechanisms or features designed to secure a product to the body may not work well, or at all, when you’re looking at the extremes of the size range.

You have to determine what sizes you want to accommodate first and whether you can achieve that with one size. We’ve rarely encountered a situation where one size works for everyone.

Nevro medical wearable concept illustration showing shoulder and leg harness designs with a material color key for fabric, elastic, webbing, Lycra, and Velcro. — An early Nevro wearable design concept exploring material selection, construction, and fit across different areas of the body.

If you need two or three sizes, you have to design the mechanisms and features to work across those sizes. You can’t simply assume that the same design will work when it’s made larger or smaller.

With textiles, you’re dealing with shapes, cuts, and proportions. Those features need to be graded appropriately for different body sizes.

You need to make those decisions early because they affect the entire product architecture.

Q:

A medical device can be technically successful, but that doesn’t necessarily mean someone will want to wear it. Beyond comfort and aesthetics, what makes a wearable product something people will actually use?

A:

I think the real trick is designing it so that the user forgets they’re wearing it at all.

I like to use headphones as an example. With something like AirPods, you usually have multiple sizes of silicone adapters, but fit can still be a challenge. You often still feel them in your ears.

I’ve switched to headphones that clip around the ear like little cuffs. When I wear those, I completely forget they’re there. Sometimes after a workout, I worry I’ll walk into the shower without remembering to take them off.

That made me think about our wearable development. That’s what we’re shooting for.

The headphones aren’t necessarily lighter, but because of how they’re worn, you don’t feel the weight in the same way.

For our medical wearables, we wanted to keep the weight as close to the body as possible. A device can be a little heavy, but if you position it properly and use anchor points on the body that are accustomed to carrying weight, you’ll feel it much less.

The goal is to make the wearable feel like a natural part of the body.

Q:

Looking back at the wearable products you’ve developed, is there a design decision you would approach differently today?

A:

Not really with the projects we’ve worked on together. I think we developed those with a lot of lessons already learned.

There is one small detail from another adhesive wearable that still bothers me. We had a thermoformed component designed to encapsulate a device, and we were moving very quickly through development.

By the time I realized that the components didn’t nest together particularly well when stacked and stored after they were thermoformed, it was too late to change them. In production, they could become slightly warped or wrinkled during packing.

It wasn’t a major issue, and it wasn’t worth delaying the product to fix it. Speed was the priority, and the product worked well.

When you’re developing a product, you have to prioritize. First, you’re designing for the overall product experience. Then you’re designing for manufacturing. After that, you’re considering things like transportation, storage, and supply chain efficiency.

We had achieved what we needed in terms of cost and manufacturing, but that one detail still bugs me personally.

Q:

As wearable technology continues to evolve, what emerging materials or engineering approaches do you think have the greatest potential to improve the way devices interface with the body?

A:

I think additive manufacturing has a lot of potential. The industry is still figuring out how it fits alongside traditional manufacturing, but I think there are opportunities to integrate stiffer materials with textiles in new ways.

Another major area is energy storage. If we can change the form factor of batteries and other power components to make them flatter, less bulky, or even flexible, that would be a significant advancement for textile wearables.

Power supplies and capacitors are often the components that contribute the most bulk to medical wearables. As engineers, we’re frequently stuck working around them because that’s the best technology available.

If we can develop technologies that allow those components to become flatter or more flexible, I think that would absolutely change the game.

Of course, there’s always a trade-off between battery runtime and comfort, and sometimes that’s a trade-off you can make.

Q:

What’s one thing you wish more designers and engineers understood before beginning the development of a wearable product?

A:

Usability first.

Ivan Lin, Rebeccah Pailes-Friedman, and a collaborator reviewing medical wearable prototypes and textile components at the Interwoven Design studio. — Behind the scenes at Interwoven Design: Ivan Lin and the team review Nevro wearable prototypes during the design development process.

Especially in startups, where teams are sprinting toward clinical endpoints, usability can fall by the wayside. There’s a tendency to say, “We don’t have time for it. We just need something clinically viable.”

But if the wearable is critical to the success of your system, you cannot skip that step.

You need to take the time to do it. You can be smart about how much time and effort you invest, but usability has to be a priority.

Otherwise, you’re going to learn that lesson far too late, and it’s going to be much more costly, especially in terms of development time, to address it later.

Q:

Finally, what have you learned about the importance of collaboration between designers, engineers, and manufacturers in developing successful wearable products?

A:

I think a lot of the best discoveries and creativity happen at the intersection of disciplines, especially when those disciplines come into conflict with each other.

For our project, that intersection was always going to involve cost and manufacturing. We started by designing around the intended use of the product, and I think that’s always where you have to begin.

If you reverse the process and design for cost and manufacturing first, then try to build usability into it afterward, you’re not going to achieve the same results.

You have to start with the use and usability of the product, then have those uncomfortable conversations about how to make it less expensive and where to compromise on materials or manufacturing processes.

I think it’s extremely important to have designers in those conversations, especially when they bring expertise that the engineers don’t have.

I strongly advocated for Interwoven Design to be involved when we met with our chosen manufacturer. We needed to understand what machines and processes were available, where we could reduce production time, and what compromises made sense.

That’s where you get the most productivity: when everyone can get into a room together, discuss what works and what doesn’t, and ultimately create a product that’s economically viable while still performing the way you intended.

–

Ivan’s perspective reinforces something we believe strongly at Interwoven Design: successful wearable technology isn’t simply about making a device fit the body. It’s about understanding how people move, how they behave, and how they experience a product over time.

What makes our collaboration with engineers like Ivan so valuable is the opportunity to approach these challenges from different perspectives. Engineering brings a deep understanding of technology, performance, and manufacturing, while soft goods design brings expertise in materials, construction, fit, and the nuances of the human body. Bringing these disciplines together early in wearable technology development leads to more thoughtful, user-centered products.

The most interesting solutions often emerge where these disciplines intersect. As Ivan reminds us, designing for the body requires a willingness to embrace imperfection, question assumptions, and put usability first. Because ultimately, the most sophisticated wearable technology can only succeed if people are willing to wear it.

Empathetic Engineering: Designing for Real People

As designers, we regularly design for people whose experiences may be very different from our own. We design for bodies with different proportions, abilities, sensitivities, and needs, and for people who may use a product in environments we have never experienced ourselves. Understanding those differences, and translating them into better design decisions, is where empathy becomes an essential part of design.

Empathy is more than imagining ourselves in someone else’s shoes. It is an active process of questioning our assumptions, observing how people actually behave, and using research, prototyping, and testing to understand experiences beyond our own. It can shape everything from the pressure of a strap or placement of a seam to the force required to operate a mechanism. Understanding someone’s experience is only the beginning. The real value of empathy comes from what designers do with that understanding. Ideally, these empathetic observations result in smart structural decisions; mechanical function and human interaction work in harmony to create a good user experience.

As AI becomes increasingly integrated into that process, the question of empathy becomes even more relevant. AI can help us generate ideas, synthesize information, and explore possibilities faster, but it cannot replace the human experience at the center of the design problem.

At Interwoven Design, designing around real human needs is fundamental to our work in wearable technology, soft goods, and products that interact directly with the body. In this Insight article, we explore what empathetic engineering really means, how it manifests in the smallest design decisions, and why understanding people remains one of the most important aspects of creating products that work in the real world.

From Empathy to Engineering

Empathy becomes meaningful when it impacts the design outcome. Consider a seemingly simple piece of user feedback: “This gets uncomfortable after an hour.” On its own, the statement describes an experience, not a design problem. The designer’s job is to investigate what is happening beneath it. Where does the discomfort occur? Is it caused by pressure, friction, heat, weight, or restricted movement? Does it happen only during certain activities? Does the product shift as the body moves? Is the problem caused by the material itself, or by the way that material is constructed? Each question moves the observation closer to an actionable specification. A pressure point might lead to a change in geometry or load distribution. Heat might suggest a more breathable material or a different ventilation strategy. Restricted movement could require rethinking the construction or introducing flexibility at a key joint. A few millimeters of additional clearance, a different seam placement, a softer edge, or a change in how components connect can fundamentally alter the experience of wearing or using a product.

Muslin mockup of the Perci Emergency Preparedness Vest used to test pocket placement and accessibility — An early muslin mockup of the Perci Emergency Preparedness Vest used to explore pocket placement, accessibility, and fit on the body.

This is where empathy intersects with engineering. Ergonomics and human factors help us understand how a product interacts with the body and how people perceive and operate it. Materials determine not only durability and performance, but also how something feels against the skin, flexes with movement, or responds over time. Mechanisms dictate the force required to operate a product; manufacturing processes determine which solutions are possible at scale; and UX considers how all of these physical decisions come together in the user’s interaction with the product.

Empathy is not a separate step that happens before the “real” design work begins. It is an ongoing mindset that informs the specifications, constraints, materials, mechanisms, and decisions that make up that work. The designer listens to an experience, investigates the underlying need, and translates it into something that can be designed, prototyped, tested, and refined.

Designing Through Observation and Iteration

Understanding people requires more than asking what they want. People are often very good at describing an experience—“this feels awkward,” “I don’t know how to use this,” “I wish this were easier”—but they may not know exactly why something isn’t working. They may also adapt to a product’s shortcomings so completely that the behavior no longer feels worth mentioning, or know a topic so deeply that they wouldn’t think to mention details that seem foundational and obvious to them.

Observation can reveal what conversation misses. A user may repeatedly adjust a strap without realizing it, develop a workaround for a difficult closure, hesitate before performing an unfamiliar action, or move their body in an unexpected way to accommodate a product. These small behaviors can be more revealing than a direct answer because they show what people actually do rather than what they remember doing or believe they do.

For designers, this means paying attention to behavior as much as opinion. Contextual research, interviews, hands-on testing, and observation can help uncover the conditions surrounding an interaction: where a product is being used, what the person is doing at the same time, what they instinctively reach for, and where they encounter friction. We don’t assume that users can articulate the solution, but try to create a holistic picture of their experience so we can design for it.

Worker wearing a high-visibility Project Firefly workwear garment with reflective material across the back and sleeves — Project Firefly explored reflective workwear designed around worker movement, visibility, comfort, and durability.

Physical interaction becomes particularly valuable when a product has to work with the body. A rendering can communicate form, but it cannot fully communicate pressure, weight, reach, grip, movement, or the way a material responds as someone wears it. A prototype can. Once someone physically interacts with a product, assumptions that seemed reasonable on screen can quickly become visible—and sometimes the design needs to change substantially as a result. Project Firefly, developed with Red Kap, offers a clear example of how observation can reshape a design problem. Rather than looking only at the garment itself, the Interwoven team studied how workers moved in the environments where Type O workwear is used, observing common movements, abrasion, soiling, comfort, and mobility. The team also visited industrial laundry facilities to understand how garments were actually cared for and maintained. These observations, combined with research into reflective materials and their performance, informed the development and testing of new garment concepts designed to improve mobility and comfort while increasing durability and extending the garment’s lifespan.

A designer’s first interpretation of a user’s needs will rarely be perfect. Instead of treating the first concept as an answer, prototyping creates a continuous loop: design, experience, observe, learn, refine. Each iteration provides another opportunity to compare what we expected to happen with what actually happened. We aren’t just asking, Did we get it right? We’re asking, What did we misunderstand? What surprised us? Where did the user’s behavior differ from our expectations? The body often tells us something the user can’t articulate.

Designing for Bodies That Aren’t Our Own

Designers inevitably bring their own bodies into the design process. We reach for a product, put it on, operate it, and make judgments based on what we see and feel. Our own experiences provide a useful starting point, but they can also become an invisible reference point for what we consider comfortable, intuitive, or easy to use. The people we design for rarely share exactly the same set of physical characteristics or abilities. Products may need to accommodate differences in size and proportion, age, mobility, strength, dexterity, and sensory ability. They may also need to account for pain, injury, or physical limitations that are not immediately visible.

This is particularly important when a product interacts directly with the body. A medical brace, adaptive garment, wearable device, or performance product cannot simply be designed around a static model of the human form. Bodies move. Dimensions change with posture and activity. Pressure that feels negligible while standing may become uncomfortable when sitting. A closure that seems effortless to one user may require significant strength or dexterity from someone else.

Soft goods make these challenges especially apparent. Unlike a rigid product, a garment or wearable system has to negotiate a constantly changing surface. Its success depends not only on its individual components, but on how those components behave together as the body moves through space. Ergonomic research, observation, physical testing, and working directly with users are strategies designers use to expose assumptions that are difficult to identify from a desk or CAD screen. A designer might assume a particular adjustment is intuitive until someone struggles to reach it, or believe a product feels secure until testing reveals that it shifts during a specific movement. The goal is not simply to collect feedback, but to uncover the physical realities that should shape the design itself.

Woman using one hand to fasten the magnetic front clasp of an Even Adaptive bra — Even Adaptive lingerie uses an accessible magnetic front clasp designed for easier one-handed dressing.

For us at Interwoven Design, this perspective is relevant across medical devices, adaptive apparel, wearable technology, and performance garments. These products have to perform within the complexity of real human bodies, accommodating movement, varying physical needs, and prolonged interaction rather than a single moment of use. Our lingerie design for Even Adaptive illustrates how designing for a specific physical need can lead to a more thoughtful product overall. Interwoven developed the lingerie around the needs of women who may need to dress using one hand, rethinking both the garment and its closure system rather than simply adapting an existing bra. Prototypes of different magnetic clasps were tested for engagement force, durability, comfort, and ease of single-hand operation, ultimately leading to the development of finger loops that make the fastening easier to manipulate. The garment itself was also redesigned around accessibility, with front-adjustable straps and construction that supports easier reach and use. The result was a product designed around a wider range of bodies and abilities without sacrificing comfort, aesthetics, or the experience of wearing beautiful lingerie.

Designing for difference does not mean creating a separate solution for every possible user. It means questioning the assumptions built into the original solution and designing enough flexibility, adjustability, and consideration into the product to serve a target range of people. Often, the result is simply a better product. Features developed to help someone with limited dexterity can make a product easier for anyone to operate. Greater adjustability can improve fit across a wider range of bodies. Reduced pressure or weight can make a wearable more comfortable for everyone over a longer period of time. Designing for difference often produces better products for everyone.

When Empathy Meets AI

As AI becomes more integrated into the design process, it offers new ways to work with information. Designers can use it to generate concepts, synthesize research, explore variations, create visualizations, and identify patterns across large datasets. Used well, these tools can help designers process more information and explore more possibilities in less time. That said, there is an important distinction between having more information about people and understanding people. AI can summarize what users have said about a product, but it cannot experience the frustration of struggling with a clasp, and it can’t observe the physical awkwardness of moving in a garment that does not fit as intended. Those experiences still have to come from people.

It’s also a double edged sword. The same technology that makes research more efficient could also make it easier to simulate those interactions instead: generating personas, synthetic user quotes, or generalized assumptions about what a particular demographic wants. The result can look like empathy without being grounded in anyone’s actual experience. The distinction matters because empathy is not simply the ability to produce a convincing description of another person’s perspective. It requires designers to remain curious about what they might be missing. AI can help surface patterns, identify gaps in research, suggest questions, and accelerate the exploration of solutions, but designers still have to decide which questions matter, whose voices are missing, and whether a proposed solution actually works for the person who will use it. It cannot replace the human experience that empathy depends upon.

Empathy as Design Practice

Design is an act of translation: taking human needs, behaviors, limitations, and aspirations and turning them into physical and experiential realities. Empathy helps us make that translation accurately. It does not sit apart from engineering, ergonomics, aesthetics, or manufacturing, but is embedded in the decisions that connect them; the form of a product, the material against the skin, the fit across different bodies, the force required to operate a mechanism, the accessibility of an interaction, or the way something can be manufactured and used over time.

AI will undoubtedly change how designers make those decisions. As our tools become increasingly capable of generating concepts, processing information, and exploring solutions, however, understanding who we are designing for becomes even more important. When the number of possible solutions expands, the ability to identify the right problem—and understand the human experience behind it—becomes a critical part of design judgment.

This is why human-centered research, engineering, soft goods expertise, prototyping, and iterative testing are deeply interconnected here at Interwoven Design. The goal is not simply to create products that function, but products that function for real people, in real contexts, over time. We embed empathy into everything we make, resulting in a product that fits better, moves more naturally, requires less effort, or simply makes someone’s day a little easier.

Interwoven Design is a design consultancy that is positioned at the intersection of soft goods and wearable technology, creating products that function with the body and offer comfort as well as the superb performance that arises through the innovative incorporation of rigid, often electronic and responsive elements. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn for design news, multi-media recommendations, and to learn more about product design and development!

A Q&A with James Rudolph, Industrial Design Educator and Founder of Rudolph Design Studio

Spotlight articles shine a light on designers, engineers, researchers, and creative thinkers we admire and the ideas shaping design today. This month, as students head back to school, we’re turning to industrial design education with a provocative question: Are we teaching young designers the right things?

James Rudolf, industrial design educator at the University of Notre Dame and founder of Rudolf Design Studio

We sat down with James Rudolph, Paul Down Assistant Professor of Industrial Design at the University of Notre Dame and founder and principal designer of Rudolph Design Studio. With more than 20 years of industry experience, James brings the perspective of an active practitioner to the classroom.

Our conversation ranged from AI-generated renderings to the enduring value of making, craftsmanship, and putting an idea into someone else’s hands. We talked about what students may be spending too much time learning, whether designers have become too focused on solving problems, and James’s growing interest in what he calls “speculative design for the real world.”

Q:

What’s one skill that students obsess over right now that you don’t think is going to matter as much in five years? And conversely, what’s one “old-school” skill that you think is going to become even more valuable?

A:

A lot of students are obsessed with being able to render at a fidelity that creates engaging, compelling, interesting visuals. In the past, that was such an important skill. If you’re a young designer, your concepts get more attention if they’re visually compelling, have high contrast and perfect perspective, and integrate color, material, and texture in a compelling way.

Some students get stuck on that to the detriment of thinking about the gesture, the overall form, and the general first impression of a physical thing. AI can help young designers create stronger, more compelling visualizations. The designer, in turn, brings the critical thinking and analysis needed to give those visualizations meaning and direction.

Conversely, the more traditional industrial design skill of model making and physical making is an area where I think we could all use a little more time. It doesn’t have to be hand carving, but it has to be the ability to show your idea in a three-dimensional form and put it in somebody’s hand.

And it’s not only model making, but craftsmanship. People respond to craftsmanship. Taking the time to make well-crafted, low-fidelity mockups allows people to evaluate the things you want them to evaluate—the ergonomics, the gesture, the space it takes up, the volume—rather than looking at how poorly something is made.

Q:

Is industrial design education keeping pace with the profession—or is it still preparing students for a version of design that no longer exists?

A:

My research and practice are closely intertwined. I continue to work with industry clients, particularly in healthcare, where I collaborate with engineers, scientists, and researchers to understand people and their needs and bring that perspective to the development of critical technologies. Those experiences also shape my research, giving me an opportunity to reflect and write about the role design can play in advancing healthcare innovation.

Those challenges, processes, and methodologies that I practice are what I try to bring into the classroom. With younger students, I provide more constraints so they can learn some of the fundamentals. As they progress, I give them fewer constraints and more of a framework for the types of questions they should be answering and the work they should be doing from the beginning of a project through the end.

In some ways, I guess it’s going back to an apprentice-style model of education: learning through doing, learning through dialogue, learning through feedback, and learning through interaction with physical things.

Industrial design student wearing safety goggles working on a project in a design studio workshop at the University of Notre Dame — Design student working on a project in West Lake Hall. Photo courtesy of the University of Notre Dame Department of Art, Art History, and Design.

Q:

Has making become optional? What role does physical making still play in industrial design education?

A:

For me, it’s still so critical. The act of making has obviously expanded. When I was in school, it was about working directly with materials—shaping foam, building three-dimensional forms in the wood shop, and learning the fundamentals of form through craft. It meant creating physical objects you could hold, interact with, and put into other people’s hands.

That’s still so critical to industrial design and the physical world, but the ways in which we can make things has grown. Now we’re 3D printing a lot. You can iterate quicker, create quick mockups in CAD, and add more content to your models through displays or digital experiences.

I think making is absolutely critical. It’s part of our approach to research and understanding people. You learn by making in a couple of different ways. You learn yourself through a kind of dialogue with the three-dimensional object, and you respond as a designer to what you’re making. But the real power is being able to learn from others through your making.

Q:

Are we graduating designers who know how to make things—or designers who know how to present things really well?

A:

I think every school is a little bit different. Some schools are certainly doing a better job of making sure that the craft of design is still at the forefront of their curriculum. A lot of it has to do with the expertise of the faculty. We tend to teach what we know, so a lot has to do with the values of the different departments and what areas of design they want to highlight.

There are certainly programs that excel at really strong presentations and portfolios—the ability to tell a compelling narrative through the visual storytelling of their projects. There may be some truth to the trend that a lot of the content in those portfolios tends to be more rendering-heavy, more digital-heavy, and less prototyping-heavy.

But I still see a lot of portfolios that show early, low-fidelity prototyping. I love to see that. I think it’s still paramount to the way designers learn from their own mistakes.

Q:

How do you define design research, what impact does it have, and how might we encourage more students to become design researchers?

A:

For me, design research is really about understanding people: their needs, their wants, their desires. Then, if you move beyond that, thinking about people in terms of social dynamics, behavioral dynamics, and common cognitive things that you need to think through from a human factors perspective.

It’s understanding people within a context, and that means understanding what their common goals, activities, and tasks are. When we start a design research project in my class, it’s about understanding a group or groups of people that have a shared task, activity, or goal.

At Notre Dame, we put a heavy emphasis on design research. In fact, one of the areas of feedback we sometimes receive is that we graduate students who almost have too much design research and less design refinement on the back end.

We start with an area of inquiry and go through the process of: What are the questions we have? How do we frame a research effort around that? What are some of the questions you might want to ask? What are some of the observations you might want to make? What type of people should you include to be more representative of a broader population?

Then, on the back end, how do you turn those observations into insights? How do you communicate what’s important—what you found that was interesting, compelling, and meaningful—to whoever your audience is?

Q:

Has industrial design become too focused on solving problems? Is there still room for work that’s speculative, poetic, or simply asks different types of questions?

A:

I certainly hope so. I grapple with this issue myself all the time. I have a real appreciation for speculative design work and for design work that is not intended only to inform products or practical things in your life. The idea of using the methods, skills, and tools of design to inform dialogue and debate has always been interesting to me. In fact, I wanted to be an artist originally. I went to school for fine art. So the idea of using the object to solicit or evoke dialogue and critical thinking is really compelling to me.

I think that’s a way to inspire students to think beyond practical objects or objects that are meant just to bring utility to your life—introducing projects intended to provoke, prompt, or incite dialogue. There’s this whole other world of design that takes place in art galleries, community settings, and social settings. Students can use their skills in more ways than just developing utilitarian products.

You also have the freedom not to design something. Maybe a product isn’t the right solution. Maybe it’s a system or service, or maybe it’s meant for a gallery or museum setting.

Q:

Everyone is talking about AI replacing designers. Is that the wrong question? Should we really be worried, or should we be excited?

A:

I struggle with AI a little bit because I haven’t found a way in my practice to use it successfully. I go to conferences and watch demonstrations of different workflows for incorporating AI into the design process, and at the end it’s like a coffee maker shrouded in camouflage. The forms don’t make sense and there’s no thought around the workflow or usability.

For more complex healthcare devices—wearables and things that have surgical robotics-like complexity—the results initially look compelling. They’re rendered very nicely, the forms look real, and they have compelling contrast and lighting. But I haven’t been able to use it in a way where I see real value. I can sit down with my partner and brainstorm 20 more reasonable, meaningful ideas. Maybe they’re not perfect or rendered very well, but they actually address the issues that we want to solve.

OneAir Medical and OneAir Environment handheld devices, healthcare and environmental monitoring products designed by Rudolph Design Studio — OneAir Medical and OneAir Environment devices, designed by Rudolph Design Studio.

It’s not to say that AI isn’t going to be there soon. I think it will become a great tool. But it won’t replace your ability to analyze and critique from a human perspective. I’m not scared. I’m frustrated with my own inability to use it successfully. It falls on me to continue to use the tools, understand the tools, and introduce them when I think they’re appropriate.

Q:

You mentioned speculative design earlier, and it’s clearly something you’re thinking about a lot. Where do you see speculative design fitting into the future of industrial design practice and education?

A:

One area that you might have seen me light up about is this idea of speculative design. Early in my career, my research was heavily focused on traditional ways of thinking about design: How do we better understand people’s needs? How do we define needs? How do we create procedures and processes to translate those needs into user-need statements and then into product requirements?

But my own research is going back to what I was more interested in as a student, which is this idea of speculative design. I’ve been rereading Victor Papanek’s Design for the Real World and also reading about speculative work, speculative everything, and discursive design. They often talk to each other as if they’re very different camps—speculative design on one side and traditional industrial design, where we make things useful, practical, and usable, on the other.

Why do they have to be so different? I think there’s room for both, and both camps can learn from each other. I’ve got this idea I’m calling “speculative design for the real world.” How do you leverage the methodologies and thinking of speculative design, and how can those things inform real-world initiatives—important societal and cultural initiatives?

When you think through the lens of speculative design, it opens up an entirely new range of possibilities for where the research might lead. You don’t have to constrain yourself to a thing. It could be an experience. It could be an exhibit. It could be a social initiative. It opens a lot of opportunities for different types of solutions that, as an industrial designer, you might not have thought of at the onset.

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Rethinking the Uni-form: Designing for Every Body

A uniform is designed to create unity. By definition, it means remaining the same in all cases and at all times. In sports, it symbolizes equity, shared identity, and belonging. But human bodies are anything but uniform. For decades, uniform design has mastered the art of creating visual unity. As our understanding of human anatomy, movement, and performance materials continues to evolve, it’s worth asking: What’s next for the uniform?

There is an inherent tension between a standardized product and the fluid, unpredictable reality of human anatomy. Rather than seeing today’s athletic apparel as a limitation, I see it as a foundation—one that invites us to rethink how performance products can evolve. The future isn’t about replacing the traditional playbook; it’s about expanding it to embrace human variability as a design opportunity.

The Clues in the Micro-Adjustments

Watching professional sports closely reveals a fascinating trend: elite athletes making subtle, intuitive making subtle, intuitive adjustments to their gear.

Close-up of a soccer player's lower legs showing team-issued socks with holes cut around the calves, revealing the compression layer underneath. — Professional athletes often make small modifications to their uniforms to improve comfort and performance. These adjustments can offer valuable insights for future sportswear design.

Soccer players routinely modify their team-issued socks to improve comfort and reduce pressure. Basketball players roll waistbands or adjust their collars during play. These aren’t acts of self-expression. They’re performance-driven adjustments that help athletes optimize fit, comfort, and movement while remaining visually united as a team.

Designing a uniform means balancing many priorities: performance, durability, manufacturability, and a shared visual identity. Yet no two bodies move exactly alike. As athletes sprint, twist, jump, and stretch, subtle differences in anatomy and movement naturally emerge.

Rather than seeing these adaptations as exceptions, we can view them as valuable design feedback. They reveal opportunities for apparel to better support the individual while preserving the collective identity that uniforms are meant to represent.

Designing from the Body Outward

An inspiring example of this mindset shift can be found in highly specialized performance gear—such as custom racing wheelchairs engineered for Special Olympics athletes.

Custom racing wheelchair designed for a Special Olympics athlete, highlighting individualized seating, support, and frame geometry. — High-performance adaptive equipment begins with the athlete’s body. Every component is engineered to support individual movement, comfort, and performance.

Here, the equipment adapts to the athlete—not the other way around. Because a project cannot start with a generic template, the engineering must begin entirely with the athlete’s unique body, posture, and movement patterns. Every decision—from the frame geometry to the seating angle—is tailored to an individual’s specific capability.

What makes these projects so compelling is how seamlessly hard and soft systems work together. While the rigid frame delivers mechanical speed, the athlete’s safety and endurance depend entirely on the softer touchpoints: pressure-mapped cushions, custom-contoured supports, and anatomical strapping. It proves that when design starts from the body and builds outward, it unlocks a completely different level of synergy between the user and the product.

An Unexplored Space for Future Possibilities

Wheelchair fencer in full protective uniform seated in a specialized sports wheelchair during training.

If complex performance equipment can be engineered to adapt so precisely, it opens up a largely unexplored opportunity for the future of team apparel.

The future of sportswear doesn’t have to mean a uniform that simply scales rigidly from XS to XXL. Instead, the “uni-form” can be imagined as an adaptable, modular system—one that maintains a shared team identity on the outside, while flexing to accommodate different body geometries and abilities on the inside.

That shift could lead to uniforms with modular paneling that accommodates different postures or prosthetics, adaptive seam placement that follows movement rather than symmetry, intuitive closures that support independent dressing, and material zones tuned for comfort, breathability, or sensory needs. The goal isn’t to change what a team looks like. It’s to expand how many athletes can perform at their best while sharing the same identity.

Belonging and Performing Together

Belonging to a team is an emotional experience, and the uniform is the visual anchor of that bond. True innovation in this space doesn’t mean sacrificing visual unity; it means evolving the underlying architecture so that the uniform supports every athlete’s peak expression.

Uniform design has always been about creating belonging.
The next chapter isn’t about changing that purpose. It’s about expanding who that belonging is designed for. Perhaps the future of the uni-form isn’t one form at all.

It’s designing for every body.

Diverse group of people representing individuality, body diversity, and personalized design possibilities for the future of apparel. — The human body is the starting point for thoughtful design. Understanding individual form, movement, and personal needs opens new possibilities for the future of adaptive apparel and performance products.

Beyond Devices: The Future of Smart Textiles

For years, wearable technology has been defined by devices; watches, bands, clips, and sensors attached to the body. These products brought computing closer to us, but they remained distinct objects, layered onto daily life rather than fully integrated within it. Today, that boundary is beginning to dissolve. Advances in miniaturization, materials, and fabrication are enabling a new generation of wearable technology that is built directly into what we wear. Electronics are becoming so small, flexible, and adaptable that they can be embedded into fibers, yarns, and fabrics, transforming textiles into intelligent systems. In this emerging paradigm, clothing transforms from a passive to an active layer; capable of sensing, communicating, and supporting the body in real time.

At Interwoven Design, we operate at the intersection of soft goods, wearable technology, and human-centered design. Our team brings together expertise in textiles, engineering, and product development to translate complex technologies into wearable solutions that feel intuitive and natural. In this Insight article, we explore how smart textiles are redefining wearable technology, and the design challenges that come with embedding intelligence into fabric. We also examine IARPA’s SMART ePANTS program as a case study in how next-generation textile systems are being developed and what they signal for the future of wearable design across industries.

From Wearables to Woven Systems

Early wearable technologies succeeded by attaching intelligence to the body. Devices were clipped, strapped, or adhered, creating a clear distinction between the user and the technology. While effective, this approach introduced friction, both physical and cognitive. Devices had to be managed, charged, positioned, and maintained.

A flexible circuit with sensor pad, PCB, power module, and surface-mount components integrated into a knit textile alongside conductive threads and stitching, illustrating smart textile construction — Sensors, circuitry, and power integrated directly into the fabric. The electronics are not attached to the textile; they are part of it.

Smart textiles represent a fundamental shift away from this model. Instead of discrete objects, intelligence becomes distributed across the garment itself. Sensors, conductive pathways, and responsive elements are integrated into the fabric, allowing the entire system to function as a cohesive whole. The garment is no longer a carrier of technology; it is the technology.

This shift enables interaction that is continuous and embedded in daily life. Rather than engaging with a device, users inhabit a system. Clothing can sense movement, monitor physiological signals, respond to environmental changes, and communicate data without requiring direct input. At the core of this transformation is the rapid miniaturization of electronic components. Sensors, conductors, power sources, and processing units are shrinking to the point where they can be incorporated into fibers and yarns without compromising flexibility or comfort. Conductive threads can function as wiring, while micro-scale sensors can be embedded directly into the structure of a textile.

This evolution changes how designers think about materials. Electronics shift from separate components to be housed within a product to intrinsic properties of the material itself. A fabric can conduct, sense, heat, or transmit information, not because something has been added to it, but because it has been engineered to do so at a fundamental level. As a result, the role of design expands. Decisions about weave structure, fiber composition, and material layering become as critical as traditional considerations like form and enclosure. Designing a smart textile is not just about integrating technology, it is about orchestrating performance at the level of the material system.

The Challenges of Translation

For designers, the central challenge of smart textiles is not simply technical integration, it is experiential translation. Electronics and textiles are fundamentally different systems, governed by opposing constraints. One is rigid, precise, and sensitive; the other is soft, adaptive, and expected to endure constant movement, friction, and environmental exposure. Bridging these worlds requires more than embedding components into fabric; it demands rethinking how products are conceived from the ground up. Traditional product design often treats materials as a means of housing or protecting internal components. In smart textiles, the material is the system. Decisions about fiber composition, knit structure, layering, and seam construction directly impact not only comfort and durability, but also electrical performance. Stretch, for example, is no longer just a fit consideration, it affects conductivity, signal stability, and sensor accuracy. Similarly, the placement of seams or zones of tension can influence how reliably a system performs over time.

Inside view of an Interwoven concept garment for SMART ePANTS. Conductive channels follow the seams, making construction decisions inseparable from electrical performance.

Designing at this level introduces a new set of constraints that must be balanced simultaneously. A garment must stretch, but not in ways that compromise embedded circuits. It must be breathable, while still protecting sensitive elements from moisture. It must withstand washing, abrasion, and repeated wear cycles without degrading performance. Each of these requirements influences the others, creating a tightly interdependent system where small decisions can have cascading effects.

Durability and lifecycle are also notable challenges. Unlike traditional electronics, which are often treated as discrete, replaceable objects, smart textiles are expected to behave like clothing: washed frequently, worn in varied conditions, and maintained over time. Designers must consider how these products age, how components are protected or exposed, and what failure looks like. Does the garment continue to function if one element degrades? Can it be repaired, or is it disposable? These questions push design beyond form and function into systems thinking.

Equally important is the user experience. Smart textiles must feel indistinguishable from traditional garments, even as they perform complex functions. This requires careful attention to weight, drape, texture, and fit. Hard points, bulk, or inconsistencies in material can quickly break the illusion, reminding the user that they are wearing a device rather than clothing. The goal is to achieve a level of integration where the technology disappears; where the garment behaves exactly as expected while quietly delivering enhanced capability. Designers must also consider how to communicate functionality through material, form, and experience. Feedback may come through changes in temperature, pressure, or texture rather than visual interfaces. The product must feel reliable and intuitive, even when its most advanced features are hidden from view.

Designing smart textiles is an exercise in reconciliation. It requires aligning the precision of electronics with the fluidity of textiles, the demands of performance with the expectations of comfort, and the complexity of systems with the simplicity of everyday use.

Case Study: SMART ePANTS

An Interwoven designer adjusting the fit of a cream-colored shirt on a fit model during a SMART ePANTS garment development session — A fit model session for an Interwoven garment developed for the SMART ePANTS program, where pattern and fit are refined to keep embedded technology comfortable and unobtrusive in wear.

One of the most ambitious explorations of this concept is the SMART ePANTS program, developed by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). The initiative focuses on creating fully integrated textile systems: garments that incorporate sensing, power, computation, and communication directly into the fabric.

The goal of SMART ePANTS is to develop clothing that can capture and process information about the wearer and their environment without relying on external devices. Sensors capable of detecting audio, movement, and location are woven into the garment, while conductive fibers act as wiring to connect these systems. Power is supplied through flexible, deformable energy solutions, and data is processed using ultra-low-power electronics embedded within the textile structure.

What distinguishes this program is not any single technology, but the level of integration. Rather than assembling components into a wearable device, SMART ePANTS treats the garment itself as a platform where every element, from fiber to system architecture, contributes to overall performance. The result is a product that maintains the look and feel of everyday clothing while functioning as a sophisticated technological system. This approach has significant implications for design. By embedding intelligence directly into textiles, the need for bulky hardware is reduced, and the user experience becomes more seamless. The garment can be worn naturally, without requiring adjustment or awareness, allowing technology to operate in the background.

From Research to Real-World Applications

While programs like SMART ePANTS are rooted in advanced research, their implications extend far beyond specialized applications. As these technologies mature, they will begin to influence a wide range of industries, from healthcare and wellness to performance apparel and everyday clothing, translating into applications that prioritize comfort, wearability, and seamless integration into daily life. The trajectory is familiar: high-performance, research-driven innovation gradually becomes refined, simplified, and accessible to broader audiences.

In healthcare, this shift is particularly evident. Garments designed for continuous physiological monitoring are moving away from rigid patches and adhesive sensors toward soft, wearable formats that can be worn over extended periods. For example, products like the Hexoskin Smart Shirt integrate sensors directly into the fabric to monitor respiration, heart rate, and activity without requiring additional devices. Similarly, platforms such as the Sensoria Smart Socks embed pressure sensors into knit structures to analyze gait and movement, demonstrating how everyday apparel can double as a data collection system without sacrificing comfort.

Performance apparel is another area where smart textiles are gaining traction. Brands are exploring garments that actively support the body through embedded functionality rather than external hardware. The Ralph Lauren PoloTech Shirt tracks biometric data and streams it to your device, while recovery-focused compression garments incorporate engineered fabrics that enhance circulation and muscle support.

In wellness and lifestyle applications, smart textiles are becoming increasingly discreet and intuitive. Sleep-focused products, posture-correcting garments, and stress-responsive wearables are leveraging soft, flexible materials to deliver benefits without introducing friction into daily routines. Early-stage innovations, such as textiles that can subtly adjust temperature in response to the body or fabrics that incorporate haptic feedback for relaxation, point toward a future where garments play an active role in regulating comfort and well-being.

In industrial and safety contexts, smart textiles are moving beyond rigid equipment toward more wearable solutions. High-visibility clothing with embedded sensors can monitor worker fatigue or environmental conditions, while military and first-responder gear is beginning to incorporate distributed sensing systems that enhance situational awareness without adding bulk.

Across these categories, a consistent pattern emerges: the most successful products are those that translate complex technology into familiar, wearable formats. Rather than introducing entirely new behaviors, they enhance existing ones, turning shirts, socks, and outerwear into platforms for sensing, response, and support. As the underlying technologies continue to mature, the distinction between “technology” and “textile” will become increasingly blurred, paving the way for products that feel less like innovations and more like natural evolutions of what we already wear.

The Future: Textile as Interface, System, and Platform

The future of smart textiles is one where the textile itself becomes the interface, the system, and the platform. Clothing will no longer be a static layer, but an active participant in how we experience the world: sensing, responding, and adapting in real time. For designers, this represents a fundamental shift in how products are conceived and developed. It requires thinking beyond objects and toward systems, beyond components and toward materials, and beyond interaction and toward experience. The challenge is to harness the potential of embedded intelligence while maintaining the qualities that make textiles inherently wearable: softness, flexibility, and comfort. The most successful solutions will not be those that showcase technology, but those that integrate it so seamlessly that it becomes invisible, leaving behind only the experience of wearing something that works effortlessly with the body.

At Interwoven Design, we partner with clients to navigate this evolving landscape, translating emerging technologies into products that balance innovation with usability. By integrating expertise in soft goods, textiles, and wearable systems, we help bring the next generation of smart textiles from concept to reality.