Filippo Zordan
DRUM-D: DESIGNING, PROTOTYPING, AND EVALUATING A CUSTOMIZABLE WEARABLE-DRUM
Year: 2021
Supervisor: Patrik Pluchino
Graduate student: Filippo Zordan
In the music market, as far as drums are concerned, many products are created to satisfy all customer requests, from the most experienced drummers to those who are just starting to hold sticks. Drum-D is a wearable drum kit that is proposed as an innovative technological solution for every drummer.
The Drum-D prototype looks like a particular hoodie, characterized by the presence of triggers: particular sensors that reproduce the various components of a drums (i.e., kick, snare, cymbals).
The present work reports the design, development and evaluation (ie, performance, acceptance, usability and user experience) of the Drum-D prototype.
The prototype was tested by two groups of participants (drummers vs non-drummers), in two experimental conditions, which took into consideration the arrangement of the triggers on the hoodie (standard vs custom).
Indeed, in one condition, the arrangement of the sensors was the same for all participants (standard); in the other, everyone could change the position of the triggers to their liking (custom).
The results that emerged from the evaluations were overall positive in all the dimensions taken into consideration (acceptance, usability, user experience and performance).
In particular, the analysis of the performance results highlights significant differences between drummers and non-drummers: the group of drummers obtained better results. This means that the prototype reflects the experience of the drummers, capable of playing it better and in metronome time.
The customization of the prototype does not differ for the two groups. Therefore, it is believed that personalization was not sufficient to improve the results, especially those regarding performance.