Touchless Interaction for Smart Glasses in Emergency Medical Services: User Needs and Experiences

The application of smart glasses in healthcare, particularly for providers engaged in hands-on patient care tasks, presents unique design challenges. This study combines participatory design and usability testing to assess the user experiences of touchless interaction methods for smart glasses in the context of Emergency Medical Services (EMS). The participatory design workshops with 16 EMS providers reveal a preference for touchless interaction methods such as voice commands and pinch hand gestures, driven by the need to keep hands free and minimize cross-contamination risk. Despite this preference, the laboratory-based usability testing with 16 EMS providers indicates that both voice commands and hand gestures fall short in task performance compared to the default tangible buttons on smart glasses, primarily due to software limitations and EMS providers' unfamiliarity with touchless techniques. Our findings reveal specific issues associated with using different interaction methods when operating smart glasses. Building on these insights, we discuss design implications for smart glasses to better align with the dynamic and unique characteristics of fast-paced medical work.