The role of Design for Health and of the Human-Centered Design approach for an ethical and conscious development of innovative Quality of Life Technologies.

n recent years, wearable and robotic technologies are making significant advances in a variety of fields, including medicine and social and health care. The development of research in robotics marks the end of its segregation to mere industrial fields: society is increasingly open to the everyday use of safe and reliable technologies for cooperation and human assistance [1]. On this basis, the key role of designers in the development of human-centered assistive technologies is evident: technologies should be designed according to fundamental human rights and to the needs and expectations of people, supporting their independence and improving their quality of life. The scientific and methodological approaches of Human-Centred Design and Ergonomics for Design can provide a fundamental contribution in the development of technologies that embody universal ethical and socio- cultural values. This paper explores the areas of intervention and the role of design for assistive technologies, with a focus on the national state of the art. This paper also investigates the contribution of design both from a practical point of view (i.e. operational strategies and methodological approaches), and from a research perspective: it underlines the role of the designers as responsible for the dissemination of technologies aimed to support and not to replace the human work.