Jaden Evenson

Improving work glove fit is essential to ensure a safe work environment for women. Improperly fitting gloves can cause women to remove their gloves while working, therefore increasing the risk of hand injury (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). Women need gloves that fit better to reduce hand injury in the workplace. The purpose of this study is to analyze an existing work glove and create a new, better-fitting work glove. The palmar circumference measurement of twelve 3-dimensionally printed hands provided by the Human Dimensioning Lab is taken with a flexible ruler to select three hands that are size small in Rough Rider brand gloves. This glove is obtained and its fit is tested on the three selected 3D printed hands using a modified Likert scale (Tremblay-Lutter & Weihrer,1995). The pre-existing glove is deconstructed and the pattern is digitized using Optitex digitizer. A modified glove is patterned digitally using Optitex software. Patterns from this digital process are then printed out on paper and used to cut out leather fabric. The leather pattern pieces are sewn in order to create a physical modified glove. This modified physical glove is then placed on the 3D printed hands and examined with the Likert scale to determine physical fit. This fit is then compared using the Likert scale to the purchased glove to determine if the modified glove has a better fit than the purchased glove. This study found that the digit 1 circumference, thumb crotch, and 4th crotch measurements were inaccurate.