Gavin Wood

Magic land: the design and evaluation of an interactive tabletop supporting therapeutic play with children

We consider the role and design of digital technologies in play therapy settings with young children. Through an aggregation of the researcher and practitioner literature, and results of discussions with therapists and counselors, we propose a set of design requirements for digital technologies that support non-directive play within a play therapy context. We explore how to design for these complex requirements through the development and evaluation of Magic Land, a set of four play therapy applications for an interactive tabletop. Based on our experiences we recommend that designers create digital interactive toys, which create opportunities for play that would not normally be possible within the traditional play therapy environment.

Expressy: Using a Wrist-worn Inertial Measurement Unit to Add Expressiveness to Touch-based Interactions

Expressiveness, which we define as the extent to which rich and complex intent can be conveyed through action, is a vital aspect of many human interactions. For instance, paint on canvas is said to be an expressive medium, because it affords the artist the ability to convey multifaceted emotional intent through intricate manipulations of a brush. To date, touch devices have failed to offer users a level of expressiveness in their interactions that rivals that experienced by the painter and those completing other skilled physical tasks. We investigate how data about hand movement -- provided by a motion sensor, similar to those found in many smart watches or fitness trackers -- can be used to expand the expressiveness of touch interactions. We begin by introducing a conceptual model that formalizes a design space of possible expressive touch interactions. We then describe and evaluate Expressy, an approach that uses a wrist-worn inertial measurement unit to detect and classify qualities of touch interaction that extend beyond those offered by todays typical sensing hardware. We conclude by describing a number of sample applications, which demonstrate the enhanced, expressive interaction capabilities made possible by Expressy.

Combining moving bodies with digital elements: design space between players and screens

In playground games, an important part of engagement occurs in the physical space where people focus on each others movements. In contrast, digital games often focus on engagement via a screen. By combining digital elements with playground ideas we identify new design opportunities where players are given freedom to play face-to-face. During a Game Jam workshop, we explore this design space by looking at innovative ways that digital technology can respond to movement. We find by removing the disparity between player movement and its digital representation, players can concentrate on each other and enjoy closer interaction. Through the exploration of digital elements and playground ideas, we suggest designers of movement-based games should consider the design space between the player and the screen using interactive technology to create engaging social digital play experiences.

Making wellbeing: a process of user-centered design

We consider the role of making in current HCI design practices and how it may affect the wellbeing of those who participate in these processes. Through an exploration of psychological concepts of wellbeing and their connection to making experiences, we suggest that making can facilitate and support both hedonic and eudemonic facets of wellbeing. We illustrate this in the context of three case studies that engaged people in creative making activities as part of user-centered design processes. Based on our experiences, we argue that researchers ought to be mindful of the potential impact our design processes have on our participants and provide considerations for those designing for and with participants where wellbeing is a concern.

'I'm a rambler, I'm a gambler, I'm a long way from home': The Place of Props, Music, and Design in Dementia Care

This paper presents an ethnographic study exploring the role of props and music in dementia care in order to engage participants and inform design. Our findings extend current understandings of participation to reveal that a more nuanced view of participation is required when designing in the dementia context. Our work suggests that participation in music sessions for people with dementia is about touch and intimacy, connection via movement, shifting roles, materiality and using props to disengage. We discuss these themes, their implications for Experience-Centered Design and offer a set of future directions in designing for and with people with dementia that underpin the participation of people with dementia in a meaningful and enriching way.

The department of hidden stories: Playful digital storytelling for children in a public library

We describe the process of insight journalism, in which local amateur journalists were used to generate unique insights into the digital needs of a community. We position this as a means for communities to represent themselves to designers, both as a method of designing community technologies and as a first step towards supporting innovation at a local level. To demonstrate insight journalism, we present two case studies of community technologies that were directly inspired, informed and evaluated by journalistic content. Based on this experience, we evaluate the role that insight journalism can play in designing for communities, the particular characteristics that it lends to the design process and how it might be employed to support sustainable community innovation.We detail the design of the Department of Hidden Stories (DoHS), a mobile-based game to support playful digital storytelling among primary school children in public libraries. Through a process of iterative design in collaboration with library staff and childrens writers we designed DoHS to support the potential for playful storytelling through interactions with books. A deployment of DoHS with two classes of 8 to 10 years olds as part of their regular library visits revealed insights related to how to balance the expectations of a child-at-play and the requirement to further develop their creative reading and writing skills. Based on our experiences we recommend that designers create playful digitally based activities that encourage children to explore libraries and experience new interactions with physical books.

Intangle: exploring interpersonal bodily interactions through sharing controllers

Multi-player computer games are increasingly being designed to engage with interpersonal bodily interactions, however, their focus is often limited to facilitating direct body contact. In contrast, we propose that designers foster varying levels of body contact through the design of shared controller interactions to introduce new types of gameplay that affords players a more nuanced engagement with the concept of socially and personally mediated body-space in games. We explore this through our game intangle, where participants follow computer-generated vocal instructions on how to operate shared controllers that results inevitably into players weaving their bodies together. This game embeds strong social values in the gameplay such as collaboration, empathy and inclusivity.

Sex Talk: Designing for Sexual Health with Adolescents

In this paper, we describe a user-centred design process, where we engaged with 58 adolescents over an 18-month period to design and evaluate a multiplayer mobile game which prompts peer-led interactions around sex and sexuality. Engagement with our design process, and response to our game, has been enthusiastic, highlighting the rich opportunities for HCI to contribute constructively to how HCI may contribute to sexual health in adolescents. Based on our experiences we discuss three lessons learnt: lightweight digital approaches can be extremely successful at facilitating talk among young people about sex; sharing control of the conversation between all stakeholders is a fair and achievable approach; even problematic interactions can be opportunities to talk about sex.

Supporting Children to Engage in Play for Wellbeing

Engaging children in play for wellbeing is coming to prominence in HCI as the community increasingly engages with issues to do with health, care and therapy. To date, research in this area has primarily focused on engaging children with special needs or who suffer from mental health problems in organized play to improve their self-efficacy or support therapeutic treatment. However, play could be more broadly beneficial for all children and their wellbeing. This workshop aims to build an interdisciplinary community of researchers, designers, and practitioners to share and discuss their work. Additionally, it seeks to explore the interaction between play and wellbeing in the context of interaction design and children and to identify directions for future research.

Using play as a lens to bridge the physical with the digital

When you play, you are deeply involved which is why interaction designers and game designers are increasingly creating playful experiences. However, a pitfall in these digital designs is to focus too much on the game rules and goals. In doing so, we miss the opportunity to design around the more open and self-expressive play that we might relate to our childhoods. In response to this problem, we will explore new digital designs using a lens of play. In treating play as something aspirational, we believe our designs will be able to change our relationships with each other and give new meaning to the spaces around us.