Textile Designer Perspective on Haptic Interface Design: A Sensorial Platform for Conversation Between Discipline

Abstract

Smart textiles have established a foothold in different academic fields, such as in chemistry, engineering, and in human-computer interaction (HCI). Within HCI, smart textiles are present in research in many ways, for example, as context, as means, or as focus. However, interdisciplinary projects tend to leave the implications of and to textile design without notice. How can a project utilise a textile designer's skills to feed back to textile design from an interdisciplinary project? In this paper, we present a case study, where a textile designer's role extends beyond the prototype production, and we analyse the project in light of textile design. Our findings show that textile design can augment data collection and analysis. We conclude with a discussion towards inclusion of textile design in HCI.

Weaving Together Disciplines: Service Blueprinting for Multidisciplinary E-Textile Design

“…However, this faces several challenges. In HCI, comprehensive textile knowledge is often overlooked, impacting user acceptability [9,10], and leading to uninformed design choices that neglect the tactile qualities and comfort of textiles [11,12]. Fashion and textile designers often struggle in finding a balance between aesthetics and functionality [13], but also encounter limitations as result of a closed fashion system [11].…”

“…Some studies have emphasized a "textile-centric" approach to enhance interdisciplinary collaborations [20]. However, these studies often lack essential documentation such as design files, schematics, construction patterns, machine parameters, and material specifications necessary for reproducibility [10,17]. Although research has explored embodied smart textiles services by using a customer journey [21], it does not fully address the behavior of the product itself, including materials, electronics, and software aspects.…”

The design process of a multi-disciplinary tool for developing interactive textiles

“…The development of interactive textiles happens across the different mentioned fields and each of these perspectives focuses on developing these novel types of textiles within their own domain. Interaction designers create tools for others to incorporate interactive textiles within their design processes [49]; textile designers wish to advance the incorporation of experimental fabrication techniques from print, weave, knit and mixed media to create novel forms of interactivity [57]; while textile engineers investigate scalable solutions and optimization of the production processes of these textiles [22]. Some industries already investigate the use of interactive textiles such as the automotive industry (e.g., BMW's Vision iNEXT); the fashion industry (e.g., the work by Pauline van Dongen); or the healthcare industry (e.g., Lumalive by Philips).…”