The cognitive complexities of emotions and individualized coping strategies make it a difficult space for design. Collecting first-person data can provide nuanced understanding of the lived experience of emotional life, to better inform the design of wearable technologies for emotional self-regulation. We present a preliminary study of our first-person phenomenological approach to autobiographical design. The methodology is unique for the intertwining of emotional activities and mindfulness exercises, as a strategy for controlling emotional repercussions. Self-observation and documentation included journaling and sketching using the Inside-Out Probe workbook, followed by material prototyping and testing in-the-wild. The Breathing Scarf prototype embodies the design considerations. In designing for one to support personalized self-regulation strategies, key considerations include designing for personal comfort, ownership, and individual-over-social meaning-making. Of equal importance in the design research process are the well-being of the designer/researcher, the ability to self-regulate emotions, and the ethics of care and emotion work.
CCS CONCEPTS• Human-centered computing → HCI design and evaluation methods; Field studies.
<p>This paper explores interactive applications that encourage mindfulness through sensors and novel input technology. Research in psychology and neuroscience demonstrating the benefits of mindfulness is initiating a new movement in interactive design. As cutting edge technologies become more accessible they are being employed to research and explore the practice of mindfulness. We examine three interactive installation artworks that promote mindfulness. In order to contextualize the interactive artworks discussed we first examine the historical background of the Electroencephalogram (EEG). We then discuss the physiological processes of meditation and the history behind the clinical practice of mindfulness. We show how artists and designers employ EEG sensors, to record the electrical activity of the brain to visualize mindfulness meditation practices. Lastly, we conclude the paper by discussing the future of the three artworks.</p>
Body maps are visual documents, where somatic experiences can be drawn onto a graphical representation of an outline of the human body. They hold the ability to capture complex and non-explicit emotions and somatic felt sensations, elaborating narratives that cannot be simply spoken. We present an illustrative example of "how-to" complete a body map, together with four case studies that provide examples of using body maps in design research. We identify five uses of body maps as generative tools for soma-based design, ranging from sampling bodily experience, heightening bodily self-awareness, understanding changing bodily experience over time, identifying patterns of bodily experience, and transferring somatic experiential qualities into physical designs. The different requirements for scaffolding the use of body maps in
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