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The human body is capable of very rich and complex movements and gestures which we use in everyday life to manipulate, navigate and negotiate the world around us—it is our interface for human experience. However, as technology advances it simultaneously shrinks, moving closer to our bodies, intertwining with the many facets of our lives and positions itself between our experiences of the physical environments around us. When utilizing these technological systems in the context of intense sporting activities this competition for our focus leads to problematic scenarios—in the best case altering the aesthetic qualities of physical activity and in the worst case leaving us vulnerable to perilous situations. 

This constructive design research thesis aims to understand how design may be used in relation to the body as part of an informative research approach to generate knowledge about how people actively engage with technology. This is deemed increasingly important as the advancements in technological connectivity and its corresponding trend in miniaturization create a pervasive effect that beckons closer examination and attention as these elements influence how we move. This is achieved by investigations conducted through studies in the area of extreme sports—specifically mountain biking and climbing activities— with the purpose of deepening understanding about human engagement with digital technologies situated within particular contexts. This research explores how the body’s movements can be considered a material to be worked with, designed and assessed in order to influence performance behaviour.

Overall, the thesis undertakes a mixed methods approach to addressing interaction design issues within the context of movement. By advocating making as a generative activity, this research produces a series of artifacts drawing from notions of embodiment that is used to ‘tease out’ knowledge, which is then reflected upon and iterated. These corresponding artifacts embody and imbue designerly intention, subsequently raising pertinent questions of what it means to be connected in an ever evolving digital world, and how we can distinguish, address and begin to design for/with information realities relating to the natural and artificial.

Ultimately the thesis offers three main contributions to designers and researchers: (1) the Stages of Performativity framework that serves to increase awareness of the temporal aspects when designing for activities (2) A proposed model of the makers prototyping process and its corresponding seduction loop phenomenon (3) a series of non-prescriptive artifacts intended to be aspirational such as the Blackbox, Heel hook, Morpheel, Griptile and Climbing Sleeve prototypes. These contributions could be of particular interest to those intent on utilizing a maker driven prototyping practice by primarily proposing a comprehensive account of the transactions occurred during my prototyping process that is conducive to heightening awareness and cognition towards athletes engaged in extreme sports. The hope is to inspire an active role in designing experiences that enhance or support physical activities rather than impeding them.

In addition, this research approach advocates the unpacking or engagement with technological materials as a means for extending understanding and defining their functions in for the sake of employing them for thought provoking, prototyping endeavors to challenge complex and seemingly established systems while simultaneously providing a discourse in regards to the advancements of connected technologies towards a more humanizing experience.  

Finally, it is suggested that the probing of alternate realities by means of constructive design exploration is an essential step towards sketching meaningful engagement when considering the role that we desire technology to play in our lives.

The Voice Harvester is an exploratory interactive installation that embodies human voice in physical materials. Sound input is amplified and transmitted through audio drivers connected to a thin, flexible membrane that agitates the material on it. The title “Voice Harvester” was derived from the fact that the installation create was able to elicit nonlinguistic, expressive, and naturalistic human vocal sounds to explore the full range of capability of the human voice through use of a novel, playful, and embodied interaction.

This design exploration took place by a team at Interactive Institute Umeå under the guidance of Artist and Composer Anders Lind. The concepts of human engagement, involvement, and embodiment as well as the creation of a physical tangible thing were central to this design exploration.

The object elicits curiosity and subsequent interaction utilizing the unusual appearance and leveraging tacit knowledge within users of the purpose of microphones. When a user speaks (or makes any sound) into the microphone they will see the materials in the acrylic tubes animate with the physical embodiment of their voice. The intent was that once this happens users will continue to engage and interact with the Voice Harvester to see the different ways in which they are able to manipulate the materials into action.

The Voice Harvester is built as part of a series of interactive installations to be shown in Umeå, Sweden as part of the Umeå 2014 Capital of Culture and has already been exhibited at the MADE festival 2013.

Co-created with Anders Lind, Music Composer and Rouien Zarin

Many studies in Human-Computer Interaction and related fields, such as pervasive displays, have historically centered around user evaluation and knowledge production, focusing on usability issues and on creating a more efficient user experience. As the trajectory of HCI moves toward the so-called ‘third wave’, new values are being emphasized and explored. These include concepts such as embodiment and engagement, complementing usability as the primary metric of evaluation. This paper explores the ideation, iteration, design, and real-world deployment of such a ‘third wave’ interactive pervasive installation in the form of an interactive, large cylindrical display. The purpose was to display the air quality data in a manner that would inspire elevated environmental consciousness and discussion among Umeå citizens, especially with regard to the environmental impact of different methods of transportation.

The Voice Harvester is an exploratory interactive installation that embodies human voice in physical materials. Sound input is processed, amplified and transmitted through audio drivers connected to a thin, flexible membrane that agitates the material on it. The title “Voice Harvester” is derived from the original design brief, which called for an object able to elicit non-linguistic, expressive, and naturalistic human vocal sounds to explore the full range of capability of the human voice through use of a novel, playful, and embodied interaction. This paper describes the intention, design process, construction, technical details, interaction, and planned/potential uses of this design exploration.

Widely acknowledged as an archetypal design activity, sketching is typically carried out using little more than pen and paper. Today’s designed artifacts however, are often given qualities that are hard to capture with traditional means of sketching. While pen and paper sketching catches the character of a building, it may not equally well capture how that building changes with the seasons, how people pass through it, how the light moves in between its rooms from sunrise to dawn, and how its façade subtly decays over centuries. Yet, it is often exactly these dynamic and interactive aspects that are emphasized in contemporary design work. So is there a way for designers to be able to sketch also these dynamic processes? Over several years and in different design disciplines, we have been exploring the potential of stop motion animation (SMA) to serve this purpose. SMA is a basic form of animation typically applied to make physical objects appear to be alive. The animator moves objects in small increments between individually photographed frames. When the photographs are combined and played back in continuous sequence, the illusion of movement is created. Although SMA has a long history in filmmaking, the animation technique has received scarce attention in most design fields including product design, architecture, and interaction design. This paper brings SMA into the area of sketching in architecture by reporting on the planning, conduct, result, and evaluation of a workshop course carried out with a group of 50 students at Umeå School of Architecture, Umeå University, Sweden.

Widely acknowledged as an archetypal design activity,sketching is typically carried out using little more than penand paper. Today’s designed artifacts however, are oftengiven qualities that are hard to capture with traditionalmeans of sketching. While pen and paper sketchingcatches the character of a building, it may not equally wellcapture how that building changes with the seasons, howpeople pass through it, how the light moves in betweenits rooms from sunrise to dawn, and how its façade subtlydecays over centuries. Yet, it is often exactly these dynamicand interactive aspects that are emphasised incontemporary design work. So is there a way for designersto be able to sketch also these dynamic processes?Over several years and in different design disciplines, wehave been exploring the potential of stop motionanimation (SMA) to serve this purpose. SMA is a basicform of animation typically applied to make physicalobjects appear to be alive. The animator moves objects insmall increments between individually photographedframes. When the photographs are combined and playedback in continuous sequence, the illusion of movement iscreated. Although SMA has a long history in filmmaking,the animation technique has received scarce attention inmost design fields including product design, architecture,and interaction design. This paper brings SMA into thearea of sketching in architecture by reporting on theplanning, conduct, result, and evaluation of a workshopcourse carried out with a group of 50 students at Umeå School of Architecture, Umeå University, Sweden.

We present and discuss the Woodbot Pilots, an interactive experience in the form of a gesture-based game that runs on a large-scale interactive installation designed to be placed in an airport terminal and used by the general public. The background of the project is described, as well as the installation itself and a scenario of its use. To end the paper, we discuss some of the issues it raises in relation to public installations as well as some of the lessons we have learnt in conceiving, designing, implementing, and studying its use.

We describe the interaction design process of conceiving, designing, implementing, and testing Trollskogen, a purpose-built tabletop multitouch system featuring a range of small software applications, termed ‘micro applications’. Each micro application is devised as a tool intended to improve or allow for exercise of social communication skills. Throughout the project, we have worked closely with a group of six children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or Down’s syndrome, all in the age range of 5-8. The system has been designed together with the users, their teachers, and various experts as a complement to the current curricula. In this paper, the three main phases of our design process are described and we conclude the paper by reporting on and discussing some preliminary findings and observations from a small user study

We investigate how an existing urban space, a pedestrian tunnel under a busy road, can be enriched using low-cost, lightweight sensors, digital technology, and lighting equipment. Our installation utilizes bars of LED lights placed in a pedestrian tunnel and connected to and individually controlled by a microcontroller. When vehicles pass overhead, a laser sensor detects the movement and passes on this data to the microcontroller that processes the data and changes the lighting within the tunnel in various ways according to our custom-made algorithms. The purpose of the installation has been to convey meaning in an ambient, non-prescriptive way to the pedestrians, bicyclists, and others passing through the tunnel about the traffic situation on the busy roadway overhead. In carrying out this project in a public space not originally designed for installations and events of this kind, we have encountered a large number of practical concerns that need to be dealt with, including issues of access to the power grid, changing weather condition, stakeholders and gatekeepers with different perspectives, and issues of safety and vandalization.