Sarah Kettley

Knitted stretch sensors for sound output

Stretch sensors appear to offer the physical computing and wearables communities a solution in their flexibility. This paper introduces an interdisciplinary project in which knit, weave and embroidery specialists were brought together to examine how a carbon rubber sensor might be integrated aesthetically and functionally into different fabric structures. It reports on the drawbacks of the original commercially available sensor, and presents an exciting alternative direction using knit structures to build custom flexible sensors.

An introduction to the person-centred approach as an attitude for participatory design

This paper forms is one of three talks which reflect on the use of participatory design methods, especially in the context of design for mental health and wellbeing. In them we: introduce the Person-Centred Approach as a framework for conducting Participatory Design; outline the method of Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR); and present a heuristic case study of these approaches being developed by a multidisciplinary design research team with Mind, a UK mental health charity. In this paper, we introduce the Person-Centred Approach (PCA) as found in psychotherapy, education and conciliation processes. We propose that this approach can help the field of Participatory Design recognise that researchers and research teams constructively inform their practice through the attitudes they bring to what is necessarily a relational situation. The PCA will be of interest to researchers working with mental health and wellbeing communities in particular, but may also be valuable in offering a framework for Participatory Design as a broad field of practice. The paper describes different modes of practice to be found in psychotherapy and outlines key aspects of the PCA, before discussing its implications for doing Participatory Design.

Crafts praxis for critical wearables design

This paper treats contemporary craft as an under-researched resource for wearable computing, and presents some of the alternative values and experiences that contemporary craft may be able to contribute to the design of personal technological products. Through design and implementation of a suite of wirelessly networked ‘Speckled’ jewellery, it considers contemporary craft for its potential as a critical design resource with especial relevance to wearable computing and the broad development of this paradigm into the everyday. ‘Critical design’ is given a working definition for the purposes of the argument, and a friendship group of five women of retirement age introduced as the user group for this research. Current practice in the contemporary craft genre of jewellery is analysed for its potential as a resource for a critical approach to wearable computing, and based on a set of semi-structured interviews with contemporary jewellery practitioners, the paper presents a set of propositions for a critical craft approach to wearables design.

An introduction to IPR as a participatory design research method

This paper outlines the method of Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) as a Participatory Design method, especially in the context of design for mental health and wellbeing. IPR is more commonly used in psychotherapy and other helping professions to help trainees and practitioners and their clients reflect on their process, using AV recordings of interactions for the facilitation of deep and accurate recall. We propose that it can provide a mechanism for reflection on team working and relational aspects of Participatory Design. The paper discusses the rationale for using IPR and the ways in which the method relates to phenomenological inquiry (including the Person-Centred Approach); it describes an IPR research method protocol, and finishes with a discussion of the implications for Participatory Design methodologies.

Reflections on the heuristic experiences of a multidisciplinary team trying to bring the PCA to participatory design (with emphasis on the IPR method)

This paper introduces a heuristic case study, reflecting on the use of the Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) method as part of An Internet of Soft Things, a multidisciplinary design research project working with the UK mental health charity, Mind. The three authors represent three different disciplines within the project -- Psychotherapy, e-Textiles, and Human-Computer Interaction -- and naturally bring their own experiences and expectations to the multidisciplinary team process. The aim of the project is to develop, through practice, a methodology for a Person-Centred Approach to design, informed by the theories and practice of Carl Rogers, and thereby to address the increasing need for researcher reflection in Participatory Design. The paper outlines the project and describes our experiences of IPR within it; it discusses how we are taking this work forward and closes with some guidelines based on our personal observations in working with this method.

The Materiality of Wearable Computers – Craft and Authentic User Experience

This paper presents work undertaken as part of an ongoing research programme into wearable computers and the processes for designing personal digital artifacts that exhibit authenticity. Authenticity is discussed in its associations with contemporary craft and as a means by which tools may cease disappearing in the obsessively rational quest for the ‘invisible computer’ and instead become more meaningful for users as objects in interaction. Materiality is arrived at as a possible basis for further work into agentive design methodologies.

Wellbeing and Smart Textiles: Reflecting on Collaborative Practices and the Design Process

Abstract This paper reports on an inter-disciplinary, EPSRC funded research project, “An Internet of Soft Things” (IoSofT) which seeks to bring soft surfaces, smart textiles and wearable technologies to join the Internet of Things debate. The project involves researchers from academic disciplines: design, computing and mental health in collaboration with a project partner, the Nottinghamshire network of the mental health charity, Mind. This paper will reflect upon the research project and specifically the approach the authors have taken to collaborative textile practice and how this has impacted upon the design process. This project was conducted through a number of practical workshop activities with Mind service user groups. The workshops focused upon the crafting of personalized textile objects with soft switches and various output and also recorded the clients’ descriptions of their sense of ownership, awareness of their own and others’ emotions and behaviours. The workshops included the researchers’ reflections and observations to enable further understanding of how this community invests meaning in material things and modes of expressive output. The aim of the research project is to use textile craft practice and smart materials alongside therapeutic approaches to contribute to the development of a wellbeing and mental health toolkit to support future client work for Mind.

Fit for purpose? pattern cutting and seams in wearables development

This paper describes how a group of practitioners and researchers are working across disciplines at Nottingham Trent University in the area of Technical Textiles. It introduces strands of ongoing enquiry centred around the development and application of stretch sensors on the body, focusing on how textile and fashion knowledge are being reflexively revealed in the collaborative development of seamful wearable concepts, and on the tensions between design philosophies as revealed by definitions of purpose. We discuss the current research direction of the Aeolia project, which seeks to exploit the literal gaps found in pattern cutting for fitted stretch garments towards experiential forms and potential interactions. Normative goals of fitness for purpose and seamlessness are interrogated and the potential for more integrated design processes, which may at first appear ‘upside down’, is discussed.

Facilitating participatory practice for smart textiles

The area of smart textiles presents an opportunity for collaboration to occur between other fields. However, despite the need for multi-disciplinary work there is a lack of literature to support how disciplines work together within this field. This paper discusses the research proposal submitted as part of the PhD study where a pilot study investigation was undertaken to support the development of the research study and methodology. As a result of this pilot study the research identified that the PhD study will investigate the participatory and relational aspects of individuals working in smart textiles in an effort to support multidisciplinary work in this field. Further the pilot study outlines how an ethnographic approach using participant-observation and inter-personal process recall interviews will be used to conduct the research study.

Plotting Affect and Premises for Use in Aesthetic Interaction Design: Towards Evaluation for the Everyday

This short paper presents an experimental approach to the difficulty of evaluating interactive systems as artefacts for everyday life. The problem arises from the event-like nature of the user-centred evaluation session, as distinct from ‘being’ or the ‘ongoing flow’ of daily life, and from the dynamic complexity of the lifeworlds of users in human centred design approaches. In analysing the data from a recent project investigating the aesthetic and utilitarian figurations of a wireless system of computational jewellery, it was found that the participants made references to a range of notional lifeworlds, and that the premises for use attached to these varied in type. An overview of the evaluation procedure, including pre and post task sessions with the user group, is given, and the results from the project discussed.