Design of a fast-hiking backpack for women

Abstract

For this graduation thesis, the goal is to design a backpack that is suitable for fast hiking with women specific sizes, features, and accessories. The selection for the design of a backpack for female hikers was chosen because current backpacks on the market are designed with men in mind therefore, female users experience more issues with misfit and discomfort. This project works closely with a company that is known as a producer of sporting equipment and sportswear who would like to expand their portfolio with products that aims to improve the fit and comfort of their customers.
Before entering the design phase, it is important to understand the aspects of backpack design, challenges with products on market, and gender differences of the upper body in order formulate design requirements. It was revealed from user research that female hiker faced high levels of discomfort on their neck/shoulders, chest area, and lower back due to the misfit of backpack size and unoptimized placement and shape of the shoulder/hip straps. With these identified issues, this was prioritized during the ideation and concept generation to explore solutions that reduced shoulder and chest discomfort while improve overall fit.
To create an appropriate fit of the backpack, anthropometric data was gathered from the DINED and ANSUR II database for formulate an anthropometric guideline. However, each database has its limitations such as data from DINED reflects students from the ages 17 - 27 and not all Dutch adults while data from ANSUR II reflects data of female soldiers and not civilian populations. The main design goals gathered from the research is to establish parameters that are relevant for backpack design asides from stature. Concluding dimensions of the backpack are based off the two databases and aims to fit women within the 5th and 95th percentile of the proposed body parameters.
After that, ideas and concepts were generated based on the identified issues, anthropometric research, and design requirements. Inspirations were drawn from existing products such as posture braces, women’s body armor/military vests, and baby swaddles/3D knitted shoes to create three concept direction.
The final concept design being a strapless system that replaces conventional shoulder straps with stiff, bendable shoulder hooks allowing for ultimate freedom shoulders, chest, and arms while pack load will be fully distributed onto the hips. Physical prototypes were made of the winning concept to validate the carrying system and tested with users regarding fit, comfort, and mobility.
From the testing results and observations, the strapless system proves to be a potential design that could improve the overall fit and comfort for women, because it allows for freedom of the upper body without the complications sternum and shoulder straps while maintaining the usability and functionality of a conventional hiking backpack. However, further development is needed to fully validate the design for a fast-hiking context. To do so, general recommendations are given to improve the next prototype.