The second part of our workshop was a design activity in which the participants have separate 2 groups and sat at two different tables. We gave them four design prompts related to embodied interaction. Some of the design prompts revolved around specific impairments. In fact, we thought it would be interesting to take something that usually relies on one aspect of our sensory spectrum (e.g. alarm clock => hearing) and look for a way to experience it through another aspect of our corporeality.

 

The groups were allowed to choose one of our prompts or use them as inspiration to make up their own. We asked them to discuss possible solutions and sketch them out, and then we all came together at the same table so that they could show each other what they came up with.

 

The two groups ended up choosing the same design prompt, namely “how can we control music while taking a shower or swimming in a pool?”. During the process we took turns in sitting at the two tables, both to observe the process and to guide the participants in case any uncertainties arose. We had agreed on a rough time scheduling for the different sections of this activity, and we chose to adjust them during the process, balancing between the pursuit of three different - and somehow conflicting - purposes: allowing the groups to take the time they needed to go through the different phases, but still keeping them on their toes by pushing them to come up with ideas quickly, and concluding the process in the scope of time we had at our disposal.

 

It was interesting to see how the same prompt has been interpreted and developed in different ways by the two groups. First of all, one of the two groups focused on one of the two possibilities and chose to only design for music-listening in the shower, while the other developed ideas for both the shower and for a public swimming pool environment. Secondly, we would like to note how the proposed solutions represented three different faces of the embodied interaction field.

 

We will call Group 1 the group that proposed 1 solution and Group 2 the group that proposed 2 solutions. Group 1’s design was a gesture-based interface. The user could move their hands in different ways across the stream of water in the shower to play/stop the music, switch to the previous/successive song or control the volume. It is important to note that, while the action took place across the water stream, the water itself was not properly the interface, and they were planning to use some kind of sensor to detect the motions, qualifying their interface as a gesture-based one.

 

Group 2 designed a solution for the shower and one for the public pool. Their shower solution comprised of a hanging ball that could be swished or pulled down to give different commands to the music player. This interface could be very well considered a tangible interface, that used the relationship we already have with physical objects as the starting material to make our communication with computational systems easier. Finally, to allow users to control music while swimming in a public pool, Group 2 designed a wearable headband controlled with swiping motion. The headband would be wirelessly connected to a music playing device (most likely a mobile phone) and would play music through bone conduction headphones.

 

With the inclusion of these wearable devices, the three main poles of embodied interaction were included in the conversation generated by our design activity.