Design Process

Original Artifacts

Interactive Display Surface

The interactive display surface is a tangible screen that a user can interact with via touch. The screen displays the output of our tangible device, and allows a user to interact with the output via tangible device.

Sock

The sock is a typical sock, made smart. Using conductive thread, a sensor, and a data collector, the sock becomes a tracking device for the user’s movement. It takes in data such as pressure, time, position, and distance in order to be used in the visual display created by the interactive surface.

Updates to Original Design

Our main design alteration is converting our sock design into an arch band support; we considered several critiques from the TUI class when making this design decision.

1. Comfort and accessibility for different types of users

When reflecting upon the class’ critique of the sock, we realized that the design has two flaws relating to comfort and accessibility. In terms of comfort, a sock is likely to get sweaty and will need to be washed with every wear. Additionally, some users might not be able to wear our socks with their footwear; dancers often do not wear socks with their shoes. An arch support band would solve both these issues. Made out of elastic and stretchy material, the fabrics are similar to the consistency of exercise gear — which are made to resist sweat. The band would also be a more flexible device for all of our users, from dancers who don’t wear socks to disabled people; our device would allow those who are not able bodied to tie the band to the wheel of a wheelchair, or wear the band on their arm. We believe that this solution will provide extra comfort to our users, while widening our user base to include those who are wheelchair-bound, or otherwise cannot move.

2. Start & stop mechanism

One important point of feedback we received was concern around the convenience of the current start and stop mechanism. In the design we presented to the class, there was a start and stop button on the in-home display that the runner had to press before leaving, and also upon arriving back at home. It was brought to our attention that this might not be the best way to start and stop the system as users may want to stop the system and then continue being out (perhaps running errands, etc.) without having to go home to do so. Additionally, with the start and stop button remaining in-home, it limited users in having to include extraneous parts of their movement in the design (e.g. the movement it takes to get to a trail before starting running).

Therefore, we decided to implement the start/stop mechanism into the wearable band itself. In this new design, the band would have a battery that the user could turn on or off. This way, the user has control of the time that the system runs, even while out and about. If they want to stop the system tracing, then they can simply switch it off.

3. Be cautious of overly abstract/homogeneous final results (“art”)

In terms of feedback on the artwork that is created in the final steps of our interface, the critiques of our work made us realize that the output should not only be unique, but also be recognizable for our users. For example, a runner should be able to recognize some aspect of their run in the output of their movement. Additionally, because the artwork may be repetitive, especially if a user is repeating movement (i.e. a dancer practicing choreography), there would need to be some randomization in each output — but not so much that it would overly abstract the movement.

Final Design

An arch support band that has a small pocket for the arduino sensor.

Our data visualization, which shows the number of steps (radius of circle), minutes that a user's heart rate was elevated (width of the stroke), and the distance that a user moved (the color: peach representing less than 4 miles, orange representing between 4 and 7 miles, and pink representing upwards of 7 miles).