Mixed methods usability evaluation of an assistive wearable robotic hand orthosis for people with spinal cord injury

Robotic hand orthoses (RHO) aim to provide grasp assistance for people with sensorimotor hand impairment during daily tasks. A comprehensive and structured evaluation of device usability not only focusing on effectiveness but also efficiency and satisfaction is required, yet often falls short in existing literature. Mixed methods evaluations, i.e., assessing a combination of quantitative and qualitative measures, allow to obtain a more holistic picture of all relevant aspects of device usability.

• 1
  The RELab tenoexo provided an immediate functional benefit to the users, resulting in a mean improvement of the ARAT score by 5.8 points.
• 2
  The mean SUS rating of 60.6 represents an adequate usability, however, indicating that especially the RHO donning (average task time = 295 s) was perceived as too long and cumbersome.
• 3
  Enhancing the ease of use, specifically in donning, increasing the provided grasping force, as well as the availability of tailoring options and customization were identified as main improvement areas to promote RHO usability.