Search

Technology-supported movement learning has emerged as an area with ample possibilities within Human Computer Interaction and Interaction Design, as interactive technology can help people to develop and improve sensorimotor competencies. To date, design research has largely focused on technology development and on supporting individual learning experiences. However, it has engaged less with the social and situated contexts of movement learning. This dissertation proposes an interaction design approach that focuses on such contexts: designing for intercorporeality. This approach aims at enhancing how people teach and learn movement by designing and using biofeedback technologies. Designing for intercorporeality is theoretically grounded in phenomenology and situated perspectives on movement learning. Focused on the fitness domain, it is empirically grounded in analytical studies of social fitness practices and in three design projects in the contexts of yoga, circus training and strength training. Following a research through design methodology, the projects center on developing a particular form of biofeedback artefacts, the Training Technology Probes (TTPs), that extend people’s appreciation of their own and the others’ movement. The projects also center on designing the use of the TTPs as interactional resources that enhance the teachers’ and students’ ability to articulate, communicate, understand and act on movement knowledge. Designing for intercorporeality presents three defining characteristics. First, a set of aesthetic ideals on what designs should incorporate to enhance teaching and learning. These relate to enhancing people’s movement appreciation and supporting them in building relevant meaning and action to address the practice’s movements. Second, it presents design knowledge in the form of a strong concept: intercorporeal biofeedback. The concept captures interactive use patterns between people and technology, illustrating how the aesthetic ideals can

During face-to-face meetings, humans use multimodal information, including verbal information, visual information, body language, facial expressions, and other non-verbal gestures. In contrast, during computer-mediated-communication (CMC), humans rely either on mono-modal information such as text-only, voice-only, or video-only or on bi-modal information by using audiovisual modalities such as video teleconferencing. Psychologically, the difference between the two lies in the level of the subjective experience of presence, where people perceive a reduced feeling of presence in the case of CMC. Despite the current advancements in CMC, it is still far from face-to-face communication, especially in terms of the experience of presence. This thesis aims to introduce new concepts, theories, and technologies for presence design where the core is actions for creating presence. Thus, the contribution of the thesis can be divided into a technical contribution and a knowledge contribution. Technically, this thesis details novel technologies for improving presence experience during mediated communication (video teleconferencing). The proposed technologies include action robots (including a telepresence mechatronic robot (TEBoT) and a face robot), embodied control techniques (head orientation modeling and virtual reality headset based collaboration), and face reconstruction/retrieval algorithms. The introduced technologies enable action possibilities and embodied interactions that improve the presence experience between the distantly located participants. The novel setups were put into real experimental scenarios, and the well-known social, spatial, and gaze related problems were analyzed. The developed technologies and the results of the experiments led to the knowledge contribution of this thesis. In terms of knowledge contribution, this thesis presents a more general theoretical conceptual framework for mediated communication technologies. This conceptual framework can guide

This paper explores the nascent concept of touch with restraint in the design of an interactive object. The design was developed to support children on the autism spectrum in social interaction and to facilitate a feeling of social connectedness. Throughout a constructive design case, the desired nature and interaction style of this interactive object emerged. An object that is characterized by touch with restraint facilitates adoption as a transitional object and mirrors passively and minimally the actions of a user. The design concept and prototype Fuzzy Bird showed the effectiveness of the concept in a user test. This strong concept contributes to the debate of how we come to live with interactive technologies, by drawing attention to the possibility of self-imposing limits on how much interactive technologies do and being respectful toward the human interactions they help facilitate., Applied Ergonomics and Design

We propose a strong concept we name Somaesthetic Appreciation based on three different enquiries. First, our own autobiographical design enquiry, using Feldenkrais as a resource in our design process, bringing out the Soma Carpet and Breathing Light applications. Second, through bringing in others to experience our systems, engaging with and qualitatively analysing their experiences of our applications. In our third enquiry, we try to pin down what characterises and sets Somaesthetic Appreciation designs apart through comparing with and analysing others' design inquiries as well as grounding them in the somaesthetic theories. We propose that the Somaesthetic Appreciation designs share a subtleness in how they encourage and spur bodily inquiry in their choice of interaction modalities, they require an intimate correspondence - feedback and interactions that follow the rhythm of the body, they entail a distinct manner of making space shutting out the outside world - metaphorically and literally - to allow users to turn their attention inwards, and they rely on articulation of bodily experiences to encourage learning and increased somatic awareness., QC 20160926