The +++ Wearable Player is a result of the application of the Rights through Making approach in designing wearables. This approach aims at designing systems, whose use empowers people towards the materialization of values (e.g. human rights). The +++ Wearable Player system elaborates on the previous project Sound Experience, and introduces the concept of viral music exchange as a motivating factor in the context of social health. This paper describes the morphological genesis, the functional aspects and how they have been implemented in a fully working experienceable prototype. The design process and its outcomes are illustrated, in the framework of the “changing behaviour” design trend

Tittarelli, Michele

Trotto, Ambra

English

ABSTRACT The +++ Wearable Player is a result of the application of the Rights through Making approach in designing wearables. This approach aims at designing systems, whose use empowers people towards the materialization of values (e.g. human rights). The +++ Wearable Player system elaborates on the previous project Sound Experience, and introduces the concept of viral music exchange as a motivating factor in the context of social health. This paper describes the morphological genesis, the functional aspects and how they have been implemented in a fully working experienceable prototype. The design process and its outcomes are illustrated, in the framework of the &quot;changing behaviour&quot; design trend

Ambra Trotto

Michele Tittarelli

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Musical viruses for graceful seduction 
Ambra Trotto 
Interactive Institute Umeå 
c/o Umeå University, School of Architecture 
SE-90187, Umeå, Sweden 
ambra@tii.se 
Michele Tittarelli 
v@+ Studio 
Borgo Ognissanti, 106 
50123, Firenze, Italy 
michelearte@gmail.com 
 
 
ABSTRACT 
The +++ Wearable Player is a result of the application of 
the Rights through Making approach in designing 
wearables. This approach aims at designing systems, whose 
use empowers people towards the materialization of values 
(e.g. human rights). The +++ Wearable Player system 
elaborates on the previous project Sound Experience, and 
introduces the concept of viral music exchange as a 
motivating factor in the context of social health. This paper 
describes the morphological genesis, the functional aspects 
and how they have been implemented in a fully working 
experienceable prototype. The design process and its 
outcomes are illustrated, in the framework of the “changing 
behaviour” design trend. 
Author Keywords 
Values, changing behaviour, wearables, Rights through 
Making, music player, interaction design. 
ACM Classification Keywords 
Design. 
General Terms 
Design. 
INTRODUCTION 
The project +++ Wearable Player, which is described in 
this paper, has been designed in the context of the Rights 
through Making (RtM) research project. RtM explores how 
design can contribute to a new civilisation. It proposes a 
vision on how design can change Western thinking towards 
pervasive ethics [7].  
RtM adopts a pragmatic approach to design, i.e. the focus is 
set on the design project [2]. Instead of being related to 
science or art, the design process within this approach, is 
seen as a process of interpretation and creating meaning. 
Design is a reflective dialogue with the material of the 
design process. RtM supports designers to start from the 
Making: it is from their skills and by integrating skilful 
points of view, that designers can contribute to the creation 
of a new praxis, able to disseminate empathy and autonomy 
and to contribute to pervasive ethics.  
The RtM design approach was developed through a series 
of workshops. During these workshops, design students and 
design researcher from several countries were asked to 
“design products or systems (...) that empower, entice and 
seduce people to reach the ideals contained in the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights, through to kalon, a synthesis 
of beauty and good” (RtM Manifesto) [7]. Participants were 
asked to materialize the values expressed by a specific 
article of the Declaration. 
THE DESIGN CHALLENGE 
Looking at the designs resulting from the application of the 
RtM approach, it is clear that most of the projects aim at 
creating awareness. The products and systems they 
designed do not have the ambition of solving problems 
related to human rights. They rather put social issues under 
the spotlight to open a discussion, by playing on empathy 
and experienceability. Thus, the RtM project promotes 
actions of sensitisation and communication of societal 
issues. Would we be taking certain actions, if we were 
aware of the social repercussions our actions had? Raising 
awareness and sensitizing through design aims at breaking 
vicious circles of ignorance, which can have profound 
consequences in the long run. At the same time it leaves 
one control over his decision; raising awareness leaves the 
possibility of choosing. Is knowing that something is “bad” 
enough to take the “right” decision? Of course not. This is 
an easy question to answer. Even the words “bad” and 
“right” sound too naïf and simplistic. Things are rather 
more complex and complicated than that.  
Design can aim higher, not only at raising awareness, but it 
can even claim the responsibility of seducing people to 
choose for their own good and the good of others. As 
designers, we can – even have to - play a role in motivating 
towards “an ethical choice”, a decision which can improve 
our life and that of the people around us. Ross (2008) has 
shown how a product, by having its own (programmed) 
behaviour, can elicit a certain “reactive” behaviour in a user 
[4]. It is neither about forcing nor inducing: it is about 
gracefully eliciting. This question echoes the in vogue 
theme of “changing behaviour”, which is, for instance, a 
focal point of discussion, within the domain of health [3]. In 
this field, prevention is crucial and a bottom-up approach is 
demanded to sustain a behavioural change of people. 
Design can seduce people to do enough physical activity; it 
can gracefully elicit to have deep and healthy social 
 
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Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). 
NordiCHI’12, Oct 14-17 2012, Copenhagen, Denmark. 
ACM 978-1-4503-1482-4/12/10. 
relationships; it can charm to eat and drink well and in good 
company and it can fascinate to appreciate quality.  
+++ Wearable Player is an example of how “graceful 
seduction” can work. But before we can discuss this 
example in depth, we need to look at an RtM project that 
formed the basis for it.  
“Sound experience” and privacy 
Sound Experience is a concept that resulted from one of the 
RtM workshops. This project started as a reflection on the 
right to privacy. How privacy is perceived and handled has 
changed immensely since this right was formulated in the 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The 
designers of Sound Experience reflected on this mutation 
and elaborated the concept of privacy in relation with the 
concept of control: how privacy can be infringed, how 
privacy can be controlled by means of music. How privacy 
intrusions can become opportunities for different 
subcultures to influence each other and establish a 
dialogue? Sound experience consists of a line of wearable 
controllers for digital music players. Four examples have 
been designed; two of them have been realized as 
experienceable prototypes and two as aesthetical models. 
Each of them is conceived to be used by a different urban 
subculture: there is a hood for hip hoppers, a scarf for cool 
hunters, a cuff for emos and a muff for fashion victims. 
Soundtracks are treated as viruses that can contaminate 
other soundtracks and prevail over them. These controllers 
mix the music of one's own music player, with somebody 
else's in the vicinity. It is then possible to accept the music 
intrusion or not. By means of music, different people 
meaningfully get in touch and have the opportunity to learn 
to appreciate somebody else's tastes and identity.  
 
Figure 1. One of the Sound Experience products: a muff 
conceived for the Emo subculture. 
THE +++ WEARABLE PLAYER SYSTEM 
The project +++ Wearable Player, is an evolution of Sound 
Experience and was designed by Michele Tittarelli. Sound 
Experience, and especially the concept of viral music 
offered great sources of inspiration. When an 
internationally renowned developer of fitness equipment 
asked our support in exploring possibilities of motivating 
people to move more during the day, we saw the chance of 
further exploring the concept of viral music as a vehicle for 
changing behaviour. The requirement was to produce a 
fully operational prototype, ready to be used for validation 
purposes. In the following paragraphs we illustrate the 
design’s concept and the development process until the 
realization of the operational prototypes.  
The +++ Wearable Player concept 
+++ Wearable Player is a system, where the tangible 
component is a wearable personal trainer/music player in 
the shape of an armband or cuff, which works based on a 
viral principle. The "virus" is somebody else's music, 
characterized by a specific BPM rate (beats per minute). A 
goal of physical activity is set on +++ Wearable Player, on 
a customisable Internet homepage, while the +++ Wearable 
Player is connected wirelessly to one’s computer. While 
exercising, +++ Wearable Player detects good and bad 
viruses in the vicinity, i.e., songs that have a BPM that 
could help to reach one's goal. If it detects a good virus in 
some nearby music player, the two songs are mixed and one 
can choose whether to accept the new song or refuse it. If 
the music is accepted, the song enters in one’s library. To 
accept the music, one gently presses on the soft spot of the 
armband’s central case; to refuse it, one pinches one of the 
ribbons. These two gestures constitute the only controls of 
the armband, together with a swiping gesture on the central 
case, which allows browsing through the available 
soundtracks. 
Musical Viruses for graceful seduction 
In the perspective of what we called graceful seduction 
through a system of products, using music as a virus, 
exploits three motivational triggers: (1) curiosity of 
acquiring new music (with a surprise factor included); (2) 
the possibility of extending one’s music library (not through 
an active research, but in a playful and, in a way “lazy” 
manner; (3) the opportunity of associating the music with 
the “kind of” people, in a sort of superficial but effectively 
visceral way. The first two triggers urge people to get out of 
their house or office and start training. The third trigger 
encourages to explore surroundings in a discrete hunt for 
other users and their music. This may result in inducing 
people to explore new paths, even extending them. These 
are only suppositions that need to be tested to be confirmed.  
The unity of form, function and interaction 
The principle of homeostasis lies at the base of inspiration 
of the unity between form, function and interaction. The 
Encyclopaedia Britannica defines homeostasis as “any self-
regulating process by which biological systems tend to 
maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are 
optimal for survival (…). The stability attained is actually a 
dynamic equilibrium, in which continuous change occurs 
yet relatively uniform conditions prevail” [1].  
The formal design of this product comes from the 
observation of muscles and tendons. They are greatly 
responsible for our physical balance in standing, walking 
and performing any dynamic activity; muscles allow us to 
act on the environment, transform it. To understand how 
muscles and tendons work in a human body, Michele 
Tittarelli observed and drew many of them, in different 
limbs, in distinct positions and from diversified 
perspectives. Through this process of embodiment it was 
possible to really understand their physical/mechanical 
principles, the relationship between shape and function (see 
figure 2).  
 
Figure 2. One of the study drawings, to study how 
muscles are built in human bodies; the image portrays 
finger tendons in different postures and a first sketch of 
how this could be synthesised in an armband. 
That led to the decision of getting inspired by these 
fascinating, beautiful dynamic structures to design a sort of 
flexible exo-tendon-glove to wrap around the fore-arm (see 
figure 2 and 3). Tittarelli writes: “the point of departure was 
the body, because to the body we had to arrive”. [5] 
 
Figure 3. A refinement of the armband concept and a 
sketch of its possible components. 
A rigid shell, also organically shaped, is trapped within the 
rubber ribbons and contains the electronic components.  
The inspiration of natural forms echoes the choice of 
finding inspiration in biology both in the way devices 
communicate among them and in the way users interact 
with their own device. Each soundtrack has its own “code” 
(BPM) just like biological viruses have theirs (RNA). Every 
virus acts only if precise circumstances occur and get 
activated in the hosting body: if the hosting body has 
favourable conditions, the virus can change, through its 
code, the part of the body that he has attacked. The same 
happens with the musical virus: if another user is tracked to 
have necessity of a higher or lower beat, the virus attacks 
and the soundtrack passes from the infector to the infected. 
Prototyping 
Several constructive solutions have been explored. To 
produce the flexibility and elasticity of the garment, the 
initial intention was to realise the model in fabric.  
 
Figure 4. This is a perspective view of the three-
dimensional model, build with SolidWorks. 
Eventually both components (the flexible ribbons and the 
hard shell) were realised with rapid prototyping 
technologies. The 3-dimensional models were made with 
Solidworks. 
 
Figure 5. The production of the elastomer ribbons with a 
3D printer. 
Due to the complexity of the shape, several models have 
been made, to eventually produce one that could be 
properly worn.  
 
Figure 6. The three parts of the prototype, right after 
printing: the rubber armband before finishing and the 
two shells, which will contain the electronic components. 
The electronics of the first models, when we wanted to try 
out the interaction and fine-tune its details, were realised on 
a wired Arduino platform. For the final prototype, to 
respond to the need of a wireless communication between 
different devices, we switched to a radio technology. 
Eventually, the electronic components lodged in the shell 
were: an electronic circuit, an xBee receiver, a 
potentiometer and a switch. The electronic circuit was 
formed by a 3-axis accelerometer 3.7V coin battery, 1 xBee 
module. The electronics in the shell send the interaction 
movements of the wearer to a computer that processes the 
audio accordingly. 
 
Figure 7. The shell and the electronic components that it 
hosts. 
The behaviour of the Virus was programmed with 
Max/MSP. Once a person (the infector) spreads his musical 
virus, the “hosting” subject hears his soundtrack speeding 
up (or slowing down, depending on the stage of the 
training) and seamlessly fade into the intruder’s soundtrack.  
 
Figure 8. One of the Max/MSP patches, which have been 
designed to control the viral behaviour of +++ Wearable 
Player in the prototype. 
Eventually 2 prototypes were produced: one fully 
operational and responding to the aesthetic quality of the 
project; the other one was a simulation with the computer, 
which allowed to test the interaction between two users.    
 
Figure 9. Final prototype: by caressing the soft part of the 
central shell up and down, one swipes through the music 
tracks. 
REFLECTIONS  
Although all premises exist to make this system into an 
excellent product, the process has not undergone a 
validating phase yet, nor has been tested by users. This is 
therefore the next step to face, which can be taken thanks to 
the completeness of the prototype. 
Another critique that can be addressed to this outcome is 
“why, on earth, another device?”. There is nowadays a 
drive towards immateriality. Products tend to disappear, 
leaving place to systems, where tangibility is more and 
more reduced. From an environmental sustainability point 
of view, immateriality might make sense: we have to 
consider thoroughly whether to add another object into an 
overfilled world, where plastic wastes are building new 
continents in the oceans. But as human beings, we also have 
a need to cherish palpable assets. Here another trend comes 
to support our argument: disposability and rapid 
obsolescence of products is coming to an end. In a world in 
which the trend of constant economical growth is inverting, 
evidences indicate that we might be re-acquiring the taste of 
beautiful, lasting objects, which can accompany us for a 
lifetime, as the old vinyl record players are turning out to 
be. Could +++ Wearable Player be one of those? 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
We would like to express our gratitude to all the people that 
have been involved in this project. First of all the founders, 
together with the first author, of the Rights through Making 
approach: Kees Overbeeke and Caroline Hummels, from 
the Designing Quality in Interaction Group of the 
Eindhoven University of Technology and Elisabetta 
Cianfanelli from the Department of Technologies of 
Architecture and Design “P. Spadolini” of the University of 
Florence; Stoffel Kuenen, who has coached and supervised, 
together with the first author, the students who have 
designed Sound Experience and the design of +++ 
Wearable Player. The students, who have designed Sound 
Experience, together with the second author: Giulia 
Pavanello, Federica Francini, Riccardo Roggi, Elena Vangi. 
We would like to thank also Chet Bangaru, our rapid 
prototyping wizard, for having patiently challenged the 
complexity of the design of +++ Wearable Player and 
turned it into a beautiful prototype.  
REFERENCES 
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online: 
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/270188/ho
meostasis 
2. Fällman, D. (2011). The new good: exploring the 
potential of philosophy of technology to contribute to 
human-computer interaction. CHI 2011, ACM press. 
3. Hummels, C.C.M. (2012). Take the first person 
perspective to transform together. TEDx Brainport 2012 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHtx5SCuYgY 
4. Ross, P.R. (2008). Ethics and Aesthetics in Intelligent 
product and system design. Doctoral Dissertation. 
Eindhoven University of Technology. 
5. Tittarelli, M. (2011) +++ wearable player. Sistema di 
viral music sharing per il settore wellness. Master 
Thesis, University of Florence. 
6. Trotto, A., Hummels, C.C.M., Levy, P.D. (2012). 
Developing a design approach, exploring resistance and 
ambiguity. Proceedings of Kansei Engineering and 
emotion research KEER 2012 Green Kansei (pp. 586-
591). Magong, Taiwan: ISBN 9789860324884. 
7. Trotto, A. (2011) Rights through Making, skills for 
pervasive ethics. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rights-
through-making/id484014614?mt=8 
 
 
 


Musical viruses for graceful seduction

Digitala Vetenskapliga Arkivet - Academic Archive On-line

Musical Viruses for graceful seduction

RISE – Research Institutes of Sweden

Swedish Institute of Computer Science Publications Database

Developing a design approach, exploring resistance and ambiguity.

Encyclopaedia Britannica Online:

Ethics and Aesthetics in Intelligent product and system design. Doctoral Dissertation.

Rights through Making, skills for pervasive ethics.

Take the first person perspective to transform together. TEDx Brainport

The new good: exploring the potential of philosophy of technology to contribute to human-computer interaction. CHI

wearable player. Sistema di viral music sharing per il settore wellness. Master Thesis,

Software institutes' Online Digital Archive

http://soda.swedishict.se/5492/1/ATrotto_NordiCHI.pdf

Musical Viruses for graceful seduction

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RISE – Research Institutes of Sweden

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