How the ‘Modern Man’ Will Wear Technology

Forrester Research’s riff on Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian Man drawing, in 1490, of a naked male with ideal human proportions is downright clever. In Forrester’s version, a male dressed in a business suit shows how a variety of wearable devices might became part of the modern man.

Forrester’s “wearables man” proportions are based on a survey of 4,657 online U.S. adults. Twenty-nine percent were willing to strap on a wearable device to clothing. Lots of people already do this, from clipping on tiny iPods to sensors that monitor heart rate during exercise. Also, 28 percent were willing to wear a smartwatch, which is somewhat surprising given salty predictions of smartwatch holiday sales.

[ Related: Has the Time for Smartwatches Arrived (or Is It Too Late for Watches)? ]

Even more surprising, only 12 percent were willing to wear smart glasses. The media has had a great time talking about Google Glass, but apparently the public isn’t convinced that people would look good wearing them.

[ Related: How (and Why) I Went From Google Glass Atheist to ‘Explorer’ ]

An even smaller amount, 4 percent, was willing to wear smart contact lenses, which, of course, would be far less visible. Receiving information without anyone noticing would seem to be an enticing idea. Futuristic contact lenses had an important role in the movie “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.”

Lastly, 3 percent of respondents were willing to tattoo tech on their skin. The surprise here is that anyone would be willing to do make technology a permanent part of their bodies, given the rate of technology obsolescence.

Here’s Forrester’s Vitruvian “Wearables” Man:

Tom Kaneshige covers Apple, BYOD and Consumerization of IT for CIO.com. Follow Tom on Twitter @kaneshige. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline, Facebook, Google + and LinkedIn. Email Tom at tkaneshige@cio.com