Wearable Bits

Abstract

Smart garment and wearable e-textile prototypes are difficult to co-design because of the variety of expertise needed (garment design, sewing skills, hardware prototyping, and software programming). To help with this, we developed a toolkit for prototyping wearable etextiles, named Wearable Bits, which enables co-design with non-expert users without demanding sewing, hardware or software skills. We developed a low-fidelity and medium-fidelity experience prototype of the toolkit and ran a series of workshops where non-expert users designed their own e-textile wearables using Wearable Bits. In this paper, we discuss the ideas they developed, their construction techniques, the roles individuals took on while building, and suggestions for future toolkits.

The Bodies of TEI – Investigating Norms and Assumptions in the Design of Embodied Interaction

“…All of them are roughly concerned with material resources, albeit in different notions. One invites the field to understand thermal stimuli as a designerly component [58], two provide tool-kits supporting different aspects of designing for embodied computing [57,115], one develops building blocks for flexible technological structures with the potential to be included in fabrics [29] and one discusses the potentials of human bodies (specifically hair) as material [27]. Table 3: Papers in the corpus along contribution types.…”

“…Even if on a language level, bodies are present, in figures, they are largely reduced to partial aspects (predominantly hands) or entirely absent. In that, two papers attend to bodymind differences in perception and sensemaking [58] or physical characteristics [57]. All visible bodies or body parts are light-skinned or white and appear youthful.…”

“…7 Material contributions to embodied computing at TEI are generally oriented towards experiences and exploration of options and opportunities for designs. Norm-setting is more implicit, though in cases where physical differences are explicitly reflected (e.g., [57]), toolkits and building blocks can materialize an expectation of bodily diversity, whereas others privilege technological perspectives to the point where safety considerations for any body appear to become secondary [29]. Particularly, when elements of human bodies are understood as a material resource, researchers seeking to make contributions to this space need to actively consider different experiences of oppression and existing norms around bodies not just within their immediate lived experiences.…”

The ThreadBoard: Designing an E-Textile Rapid Prototyping Board

“…Wearable Bits [5] offers more creative freedom. This kit consists of felt squares with pre-sewn components with which students can configure different types of wearables (eg.…”

YOU BETTA WERK: Using Wearable Technology Performance Driven Inclusive Transdisciplinary Collaboration to Facilitate Authentic Learning

“…Sun et al showcase another example of an exploration into prototype creation through an interdisciplinary workshop [51] They work with textile artists to realize beautiful aesthetic prototypes while also validating their fabrication process outlined in the paper. Jones et al also discuss the unique nature of co-designing wearable and e-textile prototypes [30]. Their solution was also to create a platform or prototyping toolkit for creating together called 'Wearable Bits'.…”