Abstract
The interaction design of electronic textile (or e-Textile) products is often characterised by conventions adopted from electronic devices rather than developing interactions that are specific to e-Textiles. We argue that textile materials feature a vast potential for the design of novel digital interactions. In particular, the shape-reformation capabilities of textiles may inform the design of expressive and aesthetically rewarding applications. In this chapter, we propose ways in which the textileness of e-Textiles can be better harnessed. We outline an e-Textile Interaction Design strategy that is based on defining the material specificity of e-Textiles as its ability to deform in ways that match the expectations we have of textile materials. It embraces an open-ended exploration of interactions related to textiles (e.g., stretching, folding, turning inside out) and their potential for electronic recognisability for deriving material-specific concepts and applications for e-Textiles.
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Acknowledgements
This work is part of ArcInTex ETN research, which is an EU-funded Marie Sklodowska Curie European Training Network Project (more info at http://www.arcintexetn.eu).
A part of the empirical research included in the chapter was undertaken at the Embodied Design Research Group of the Department of Design in Aalto University, Finland.
We thank Berit Greinke (Design Research Lab, UdK Berlin) for corrections that greatly improved the manuscript.
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Gowrishankar, R., Bredies, K., Ylirisku, S. (2017). A Strategy for Material-Specific e-Textile Interaction Design. In: Schneegass, S., Amft, O. (eds) Smart Textiles. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50124-6_11
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