Intelligent Product Design for Baby Weighing Scale

摘要

The weight of infant is quite important for doctors, which is obtained initially to assess infant growth and to determine if the infant is well-nourished. For the parents, they are eager to know how heavy their babies are. In this paper, we propose an intelligent design of baby weighing scale for the hospitals. A complete design process is followed by a series of procedures, which start from research on user focus and design context, then market analysis, idea generation, concept refinement, iterative prototype building and user tests, resulting in the final working prototype and conclusions. To demonstrate the concept, a working prototype is built using pressure sensor and Arduino Uno. The scale has two separate parts. One is the main body with pressure sensor, which is covered with a changeable water-proof cotton. The other part is a remote display, which can be fixed anywhere ergonomic for end users (nurses or parents) to read the data of weight. The innovative point lies on the function that print out the date and weight automatically after weighing. Then parents and nurses can keep the "receipt" as record of infant's development. From user tests of the prototype both in the hospital and during exhibition of the project, we receive positive feedbacks, which proves this design of baby weighing scale can improve the efficiency of nurses and strengthen the bonding between parents and babies.