Breathing Scarf: Using a First-Person Research Method to Design a Wearable for Emotional Regulation

Abstract

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.

Computationally augmenting traditional embroidery practices: an autobiographical design process with first-person patient experience for amblyopia follow up treatment activity

“…However, hand-eye collaboration and new patterns during embroidery activity show positive feedback. The detail process of thematic analysis is the same as previous work from Cochrane et al [15].…”

“…The autobiographical study has been a topic of much discussion over the past decade in HCI [14,15,17,33,45,55,61], with a special issue most recently arguing for the value of first-person research methodologies [23]. Autobiographical design research is a process that takes the researcher or designer as the target user and evaluates the design through self-testing to get real-life experience and feedback [45].…”

“…The design researcher collected first-person data through the "Inside-Out Probe Workbook" based on the work of Cochrane et al [15][16][17]. The workbook was filled after each activity, and for all the activities tested in this study, the design researcher needed to wear eye patching.…”

Affective Umbrella – A Wearable System to Visualize Heart and Electrodermal Activity, towards Emotion Regulation through Somaesthetic Appreciation

“…Similar to our concept, Cochrane et al present a design method of adjusting the emotional reality of a user to regulate emotions. They also adopted EDA as the sensing modality in biofeedback [14]. However, the authors focus mostly on the design process and applications towards mental health.…”

“…It is even more difficult to regulate our feelings. We have seen the effective use of several meditation practices [14] to help with increasing stress and to enable emotion regulation. These have their practitioners focus on their breath or on an object or its movement, etc., to enable them to observe their feelings from "the outside".…”