Value driven co-design of smart sportswear for heat illness prevention in tropical regions

Background Heat illness poses a serious health risk for endurance athletes in tropical climates, yet smart sportswear solutions integrating wearable digital health functions remain underexplored in low-resource settings. Objective The objective of this research was to co-design concepts for wearable technology-enabled cycling sportswear that integrate cooling, physiological monitoring, culturally responsive usability, and cost-sensitive implementation to inform heat illness prevention strategies and support future prototype development. Methods We conducted five co-design workshops with 20 semi-professional cyclists in Sri Lanka, using the Functional–Expressive–Aesthetic (FEA) framework to elicit user needs. Participants generated 19 design concepts and prioritized features through group discussion, sticky-note voting and qualitative ranking based on perceived health impact, usability, and cost feasibility. Results Cooling comfort emerged as the top priority, with strong preference for hybrid designs combining natural wind cooling and smart user-controllable cooling. Key cooling zones included neck/upper back and underarm/chest. Participants valued physiological monitoring when it supported actionable interventions, such as future sensor-triggered cooling and hydration prompts, rather than passive monitoring dashboards. Additional priorities included localized UI in Sinhala, simplified data visualization, and safety features such as reflective elements. Two T-shirt concepts were finalized: smart cooling with user-controlled settings and lightweight cooling packs integrated with perforated panels. Conclusions Findings suggest that smart sportswear for low-resource tropical cycling contexts should prioritise actionable, localised, and cost-sensitive cooling interventions rather than monitoring-only functions. The study contributes concept-level design requirements for culturally responsive wearable digital health sportswear. Because the findings are based on co-design outputs and participant perceptions, the proposed health benefits remain conceptual and require prototype development, physiological validation, usability testing, and field evaluation under cycling conditions.