Designing for Aesthetic Experiences from the Body and Felt-Sense

Third Wave Human Computer Interaction (HCI) has opened the door for research agendas placing the lived body in the centre of discussion. However, aspects such as the articulation of aesthetic experiences, as well as the transference of somatic values into the design practice require more systematic methods to analyse, articulate and frame those values into practical design solutions. Recognising this gap, this thesis investigates the use of bodily self-awareness and subjective experience as a material for accessing discoveries, by integrating theoretical and practical principles from Eugene Gendlin’s psychosomatic technique Focusing into the fields of design and HCI. Particularly important is Gendlin’s notion of felt sense, which can be defined as a state; a complex bodily sense of implicit knowing, consisting of an implicit source of sensations, feelings, memories, thoughts and other manifestations difficult to label through straightforward definitions. These manifestations are carefully articulated and documented by those who experience the felt-sense, becoming the material capture of aesthetic experiences used for research and practice. The research questions are developed around how aesthetic qualities emerging from the interaction with the felt-sense, objects and technology assist in the meaning-generation process, and how these outcomes can be utilised in design practice. In terms of methodology, this thesis is inspired by phenomenological research, and follows the conventions of design-oriented research towards the generation of knowledge for design. Four studies were run, dealing with the exploration of novel design methods, and the use of sensory stimuli on the body during the practice of Focusing. As a result, this thesis contributes with a set of Focusing-oriented design methods dealing with different stages of the design process, ranging from inspiration, data collection, ideation, evaluation and prototyping

Resonating Experiences of Self and Others enabled by a Tangible Somaesthetic Design

Digitalization is penetrating every aspect of everyday life including a human's heart beating, which can easily be sensed by wearable sensors and displayed for others to see, feel, and potentially "bodily resonate" with. Previous work in studying human interactions and interaction designs with physiological data, such as a heart's pulse rate, have argued that feeding it back to the users may, for example support users' mindfulness and self-awareness during various everyday activities and ultimately support their wellbeing. Inspired by Somaesthetics as a discipline, which focuses on an appreciation of the living body's role in all our experiences, we designed and explored mobile tangible heart beat displays, which enable rich forms of bodily experiencing oneself and others in social proximity. In this paper, we first report on the design process of tangible heart displays and then present results of a field study with 30 pairs of participants. Participants were asked to use the tangible heart displays during watching movies together and report their experience in three different heart display conditions (i.e., displaying their own heart beat, their partner's heart beat, and watching a movie without a heart display). We found, for example that participants reported significant effects in experiencing sensory immersion when they felt their own heart beats compared to the condition without any heart beat display, and that feeling their partner's heart beats resulted in significant effects on social experience. We refer to resonance theory to discuss the results, highlighting the potential of how ubiquitous technology could utilize physiological data to provide resonance in a modern society facing social acceleration.Comment: 18 page

Serious video games in engineering education: a scoping review

Video games have become an important element of contemporary life. The need to use them in the field of education has given rise to the appearance of serious video games, which have been specially designed to achieve objectives at different educational levels and generate spaces for educational innovation. The purpose of this work is to investigate the use of serious video games in engineering education. A scoping review was carried out on serious video games that were used or designed for this purpose. The search was done in the Scopus and Web of Science databases between 2016 and 2021. The main results show that there is a strong inclination towards serious simulation video games, and they have a good degree of educational acceptance among engineering studentsPeer Reviewe

Exploring bovine fecal bacterial microbiota in the Mapimi Biosphere Reserve, Northern Mexico

En México la información sobre la microbiota fecal bovina (Bos taurus) es escasa. El presente estudio describe la diversidad y abundancia de bacterias en muestras fecales de bovinos en pastizales, recolectadas en la Reserva de la Biosfera de Mapimí en la parte central del desierto chihuahuense. Las muestras fecales se analizaron mediante secuenciación masiva de siguiente generación de alto rendimiento utilizando la V3-V4 del ARNr 16S en Miseq de Illumina. Se identificaron un total de 17 filos, 24 clases, 33 órdenes, 50 familias, 281 géneros y 297 especies. Firmicutes y Verrucomicrobia fueron los filos más abundantes. Los géneros más abundantes fueron Sporobacter, PAC000748_g (géneros de la familia Ruminococcaceae) y Eubacterium_g23. Se registraron tres géneros (Clostridium, Corynebacterium y Fusobacterium) y una especie (Campylobacter fetus) de bacterias bovinas potencialmente patógenas. Esta información representa una línea base bacteriológica para monitorear el estado de salud intestinal de bovinos en pastoreo y para rastrear posibles interacciones con la microbiota fecal de la fauna nativa itinerante del área.In Mexico, information on the bovine fecal microbiota (Bos taurus) is scarce. The present study describes the diversity and abundance of bacteria in fecal samples from rangeland bovines, collected in the Mapimi Biosphere Reserve in the central part of the Chihuahuan desert. Fecal samples were analysed using high-throughput next generation massive sequencing using V3-V4 16S rRNA on Illumina Miseq. A total of 17 phyla, 24 classes, 33 orders, 50 families, 281 genera, and 297 species were identified. Firmicutes and Verrucomicrobia were the most abundant phyla. The most abundant genera were Sporobacter, PAC000748_g (genera into the Ruminococcaceae family) and Eubacterium_g23. Three genera (Clostridium, Corynebacterium and Fusobacterium) and one species (Campylobacter fetus) potentially pathogenic bovine bacteria were registered. This information represents a bacteriological baseline for monitoring the grazing bovine intestinal health status, and to trace possible interactions with the fecal microbiota of native roaming wildlife in the area

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Reflection through Inner Presence: A Sensitising Concept for Design

Although our embodied dimension has been recognised as a generative source of imagination through movement and gesture, the notion of the body as a generator of more symbolic and descriptive expressions of knowledge remains mostly unexplored in human-computer interaction (HCI). This theoretical paper introduces the sensitising concept of reflection through inner presence, in contrast to reflection in action, as a way to differentiate two modes of embodied reflection generating distinct types of materials for design ideation, inspiration, and information. The relevance of this distinction, and the recognition of inner presence in somatic-oriented design, appears as a way to fill the gap of the reported elusiveness in the description of inner experience for design use. Different than design approaches that use reflection in action, reflection through inner presence generates detailed accounts of somatic and aesthetic qualities, which can be potentially incorporated into the design of artefacts

Reflection through Inner Presence: A Sensitising Concept for Design

Although our embodied dimension has been recognised as a generative source of imagination through movement and gesture, the notion of the body as a generator of more symbolic and descriptive expressions of knowledge remains mostly unexplored in human-computer interaction (HCI). This theoretical paper introduces the sensitising concept of reflection through inner presence, in contrast to reflection in action, as a way to differentiate two modes of embodied reflection generating distinct types of materials for design ideation, inspiration, and information. The relevance of this distinction, and the recognition of inner presence in somatic-oriented design, appears as a way to fill the gap of the reported elusiveness in the description of inner experience for design use. Different than design approaches that use reflection in action, reflection through inner presence generates detailed accounts of somatic and aesthetic qualities, which can be potentially incorporated into the design of artefacts

Tangible Body Maps of Felt-Sensing Experience

There is a growing interest amongst the HCI community to access and articulate the core of experiences for design use. The premise is that, by accessing detailed accounts of everyday experiences, we can obtain refined material for the design of interactive systems more connected with our bodies and emotions. This TEI studio aims to introduce participants to the basis of phenomenologically grounded techniques in combination with the use of tangible materials as a way to articulate experience from the inner self, applied to the evaluation of existing technologies. This studio offers an alternative to assessment tools that rely on a predefined repertoire of feelings, to instead focus on emergent, complex and unclear aspects of our emotions. These strange collections of emotions -or felt senses will be further explored through self-reporting tools and group exercises.QC 20210517</p

Customizing and Evaluating Accessible Multisensory Music Experiences with Pre-Verbal Children&mdash;A Case Study on the Perception of Musical Haptics Using Participatory Design with Proxies

Research on Accessible Digital Musical Instruments (ADMIs) has highlighted the need for participatory design methods, i.e., to actively include users as co-designers and informants in the design process. However, very little work has explored how pre-verbal children with Profound and Multiple Disabilities (PMLD) can be involved in such processes. In this paper, we apply in-depth qualitative and mixed methodologies in a case study with four students with PMLD. Using Participatory Design with Proxies (PDwP), we assess how these students can be involved in the customization and evaluation of the design of a multisensory music experience intended for a large-scale ADMI. Results from an experiment focused on communication of musical haptics highlighted the diversity in employed interaction strategies used by the children, accessibility limitations of the current multisensory experience design, and the importance of using a multifaceted variety of qualitative and quantitative methods to arrive at more informed conclusions when applying a design with proxies methodology

Designing with the Body in Unhabitual Movements using Visual and Textual Elicitation Tools

The goal of this studio is to explore the qualities of unhabitual body movements to inform the design of close-to-the-body touch technologies. After engaging with unhabitual kinesthetic activities, we will use visual and textual elicitation tools to communicate emerging felt sensations. We propose the use of photography as an open-ended visual medium and a repertoire of textural metaphors as a textual tool - a vocabulary list of felt qualities that will be extended through the participants’ contribution. We will then collectively explore how these expressions of felt sensations can be translated into concrete design elements via tangible design ideation and making.    QC 20230612</p