Evaluation

The evaluation of the open glove for MS was done using a qualitive user testing analysis due to the fact that the glove is custom made to fit the participant's needs. Quantitative research would not have been appropriate since the participant is the only individual at hand that the gloves should fit for. 

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The Open Glove for MS (Multiple Sclerosis) has 3 key features.  

• The glove opening 

• The Velcro straps with the ring handle 

• The fixing mechanism to attach the glove to the steering wheel 
  
  

The opening of glove aids the participant to directly place her fingers into the correct finger holes and eliminated her need for blind guessing. This feature fixed the main problem that the participant had with the usage of traditional gloves. Although the original problem was fixed the participant still has problems with gliding their hand smoothly fully in. This is due to the nature of the participants MS symptoms and the woolly inside of the gloves that creates a lot of resistance. One of the suggestions methods that was brought forward to tackle this arising issue was to make the inside patting of the gloves of a more slippery material or a secondary glove that is made of such a slippery material that covers her fingers and helps the participant hand glide in. Material such as silk or satin would fulfil the requirements needed quite well. But due to the limitations of the group’s sewing capabilities, that additional part was not feasible without destroying the gloves.  

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The Velcro straps with the ring help the participants enclose the opening of the glove after they insert their hand into it and make it look like a traditional glove. The handle on the straps helps the participants to get a good grip of the straps. Still the gloves suffer from the issue of not being able to close completely. This is due to the fact that the glove final prototype is made out an existing glove and this bring the problem that the glove does not provide enough fabric to give an overlap to enclose the glove complete. This problem could be fixed with the help of additional straps and extra fabric for the glove instead of a glove that is not made at the measurement for it to be open and closed. 

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The fixing mechanism solves the problem of the participant’s hand falling off the steering wheel and incorporates an emergency method to remove their hand from the steering wheel in case of an accident or emergency. The strap for the mechanism itself is easily detachable so that participants can remove the mechanism if the participant wishes to switch e-bike in the future. There is not any noteworthy point of improvement for the attachment mechanism. As it solves the problem and has no problems that were visible from the qualitive user test. 

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A more in delve research may be required to get a better understanding of the limitations of the current design to see how the glove holds up with extended usage. And to have a better understanding of the user satisfactions, efficiency, effectiveness for the current design to see if there are more potential improvement points for the glove.