Embracing first-person perspectives in soma-based design

This article belongs to the Special Issue Tangible and Embodied InteractionA set of prominent designers embarked on a research journey to explore aesthetics in movement-based design. Here we unpack one of the design sensitivities unique to our practice: A strong first person perspective-where the movements, somatics and aesthetic sensibilities of the designer, design researcher and user are at the forefront. We present an annotated portfolio of design exemplars and a brief introduction to some of the design methods and theory we use, together substantiating and explaining the first-person perspective. At the same time, we show how this felt dimension, despite its subjective nature, is what provides rigor and structure to our design research. Our aim is to assist researchers in soma-based design and designers wanting to consider the multiple facets when designing for the aesthetics of movement. The applications span a large field of designs, including slow introspective, contemplative interactions, arts, dance, health applications, games, work applications and many others

Biosensing and Actuation—Platforms Coupling Body Input-Output Modalities for Affective Technologies

Research in the use of ubiquitous technologies, tracking systems and wearables within mental health domains is on the rise. In recent years, affective technologies have gained traction and garnered the interest of interdisciplinary fields as the research on such technologies matured. However, while the role of movement and bodily experience to affective experience is well-established, how to best address movement and engagement beyond measuring cues and signals in technology-driven interactions has been unclear. In a joint industry-academia effort, we aim to remodel how affective technologies can help address body and emotional self-awareness. We present an overview of biosignals that have become standard in low-cost physiological monitoring and show how these can be matched with methods and engagements used by interaction designers skilled in designing for bodily engagement and aesthetic experiences. Taking both strands of work together offers unprecedented design opportunities that inspire further research. Through first-person soma design, an approach that draws upon the designer’s felt experience and puts the sentient body at the forefront, we outline a comprehensive work for the creation of novel interactions in the form of couplings that combine biosensing and body feedback modalities of relevance to affective health. These couplings lie within the creation of design toolkits that have the potential to render rich embodied interactions to the designer/user. As a result we introduce the concept of “orchestration”. By orchestration, we refer to the design of the overall interaction: coupling sensors to actuation of relevance to the affective experience; initiating and closing the interaction; habituating; helping improve on the users’ body awareness and engagement with emotional experiences; soothing, calming, or energising, depending on the affective health condition and the intentions of the designer. Through the creation of a range of prototypes and couplings we elicited requirements on broader orchestration mechanisms. First-person soma design lets researchers look afresh at biosignals that, when experienced through the body, are called to reshape affective technologies with novel ways to interpret biodata, feel it, understand it and reflect upon our bodies

Experiencing discomfort: designing for affect from first-person perspective

In this paper, we describe how by embracing a first-person design perspective we engaged with the uncomfortable to successfully gain insight into the design of affective technologies. Firstly, we experience estrangement that highlights and grounds our bodies as desired in the targeted technology interaction. Secondly, we understand design preconceptions, risks and limitations of the design artifacts

Unpacking Non-Dualistic Design: The Soma Design Case

We report on a somaesthetic design workshop and the subsequent analytical work aiming to demystify what is entailed in a non-dualistic design stance on embodied interaction and why a first-person engagement is crucial to its unfoldings. However, as we will uncover through a detailed account of our process, these first-person engagements are deeply entangled with second- and third-person perspectives, sometimes even overlapping. The analysis furthermore reveals some strategies for bridging the body-mind divide by attending to our inner universe and dissolving or traversing dichotomies between inside and outside; individual and social; body and technology. By detailing the creative process, we show how soma design becomes a process of designing with and through kinesthetic experience, in turn letting us confront several dualisms that run like fault lines through HCI's engagement with embodied interaction

Somaesthetics of Discomfort and Wayfinding: Encouraging Inclusive Architectural Design

Somaesthetics of discomfort facilitates intentionally inclusive designed spaces for wayfinding by accounting for individuals’ distinct navigational experiences. Following the work of Richard Shusterman, somaesthetics of discomfort is a combination of somatic awareness and somaesthetic reflection centered around feeling ill-at-ease or out of place. The increased awareness of discomfort and reciprocal reflection upon feelings of discomfort enhances how activities and places are experienced, recognized, and categorized. How people experience difficult wayfinding is an element that is often missing from architectural planning and development. Considering uncomfortable somatic experiences of navigation would provide designers with tools to conceptualize and create wayfinding affordances within various spaces. Discomfort may be understood as a somatic affordance during wayfinding because it indicates that there is something problematic about the intersection of soma and environment. This paper describes wayfinding and somaesthetics as they pertain to architectural design. By using the examples of hospitals and parking garages, somaesthetics of discomfort is introduced as a tool that uses somatic appreciation and individual reflection about wayfinding experiences for improving how spaces are designed