• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.331-342
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• 2007

This study focused on developing MP3 smart clothing products and usability evaluation. MP3 smart clothing which was developed in this study contains e-textile keypad and a kit. The kit consists of MP3 Player, remote controller module and ear phone, and are easy to assemble and dismantle. And usability evaluation about MP3 smart Clothing which was developed in this study contains e-textile keypad and a kit. For making the MP3 Smart clothing, e-textile signal line and keypad was developed and a metal connection ring also was manufactured to adhere closely e-textile signal line to keypad. The last products are two kinds of MP3 smart clothing, jacket style of MP3-YSJ(Yonsei Smart Jacket) and safari style of MP3-YSS(Yonsei Smart Safari). Then usability evaluation conducted two times about MP3 smart clothing developed. Usability evaluation is classified by a module evaluation and an item evaluation. The module evaluation measured external appearance, material, a music controller, an ear phone(or a mini speaker) and connector. The item evaluation measured social acceptance, feeling of wearing, utility, easiness of maintenance and safety. The module evaluation described totally positive results in the first usability evaluation about MP3-YSJ 1.0 and MP3-YSS 1.0. The item evaluation shows a lower score in the social acceptance, especially the easiness of connector maintenance and the social acceptance of music-controller in MP3-YSJ 1.0 and MP3-YSS 1.0. The second usability evaluation conducted with improved products by the first usability test results. Results from second item evaluation indicated needs to improve the easiness of connector & music-controller maintenance and the social acceptance of music-controller in MP3-YSJ 2.0. In MP3-YSS 2.0, the easiness of material management and the social acceptance of music controller & connector needed to improvement. In particular, users felt inconvenience in the social acceptance because of e-textile keypad arrangement. To outweigh this disadvantage, further study is needed about keypad interface of the music controller.