Smart garment and wearable e-textile prototypes are difficult to co-design because of the variety of expertise needed (garment design, sewing skills, hardware prototyping, and software programming). To help with this, we developed a toolkit for prototyping wearable etextiles, named Wearable Bits, which enables co-design with non-expert users without demanding sewing, hardware or software skills. We developed a low-fidelity and medium-fidelity experience prototype of the toolkit and ran a series of workshops where non-expert users designed their own e-textile wearables using Wearable Bits. In this paper, we discuss the ideas they developed, their construction techniques, the roles individuals took on while building, and suggestions for future toolkits.
Actuating, dynamic materials offer substantial potential to enhance interior designs but there are currently few examples of how they might be utilised or impact user experiences. As part of a design-led exploration, we have prototyped (Wizard-of-Oz) an actuating, dining table runner (ActuEater1), and then developed a fully-interactive fabric version that both changes shape and colour (ActuEater2). Four in-situ deployments of 'ActuEaters' in different dinner settings and subsequent 'design crits' showed insights into how people perceive, interpret and interact with such slow-technology in interesting (and often unexpected) ways. The results of our 'ActuEating' studies provide evidence for how an actuating artefact can be simultaneously a resource for social engagement and an interactive decorative. In response, we explore design opportunities for situating novel interactive materials in everyday settings, taking the leap into a new generation of interactive spaces, and critically considering new aesthetic possibilities.
Figure 1: Soft Speakers: digitally embroidered audio and haptic actuators on fabrics in three steps: 1) Digital design of the speaker pattern using Adobe Illustrator or Artistic Digitizer Software, 2) Digital fabrication using conductive thread in a digital embroidery machine; 3) Implementation into soft interfaces and wearables
Under the umbrella of Ubiquitous Computing, lies the fields of natural, organic and tangible userinterfaces. Although some work have been made in organic user interface (OUI) design principles, noformalized framework have been set for OUIs and their interaction model, or design-specific guidelines, asfar as we know. In this paper we propose an OUI framework by which we deduced the developedinteraction model for organic systems design. Moreover we recommended three main design principles forOUI design, in addition to a set of design-specific guidelines for each type of our interaction model.Our proposed framework is deduced based on previous work of other related researches for GraphicalUser Interface (GUI) and Tangible User Interface (TUI) frameworks. By categorizing the input techniquesof OUI systems, we were able to propose the ‘/ Manipulation/ air-Gesture’ (SMaG) interaction model.Each category of SMaG model is explored thoroughly and criticized accordingly. Based on the SMaGinteraction model we introduced some design guidelines for OUIs. The proposed OUI design principles arebased on three usability aspects: look, feel and design. We conclude by pointing out our proposed OUIusability guidelines and considerations regarding design-specific organic interfaces that uses each of theinput interaction techniques of SMaG model, their best use, worst use and how to use
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