I am not super happy with how far we got when it comes to kinaesthetic interaction, but I see it more as the first testing of it. Now I can start to see how you can work with bodily movements when creating a kinaesthetic interaction. And I think that the reason we didn’t achieve as much as we could is that we weren’t as sharpened as other groups into what kinaesthetic experience we wanted to use. We didn’t start with the body. We started with the framework. One group had used what they called a kind of paper prototyping where they, in a quick and easy way, could test out different moments to get a first indication of how a movement would work. I find this inspirational because we could have done more of this quick and easy testing but with a more structured aim for what and the way we wanted to test a movement.
We received the feedback that we had been doing blind explorations because we more tried and then saw where it led us. And I think that that is true. Looking back at our project, I can feel that we missed out when moving over to social interaction. We should have worked more with what kinaesthetic experiences of our first sketch and tried to see what we had that worked/not worked and try to create a richer interaction. Changing over multiple bodies and designs with the aim for social kinaesthetic interaction became more like a way to leave the other interaction when it started to become hard.
Another factor that I feel has influenced the work too much is that we used the theremin as an inspiration. We kept attributes from the interactions with the actual instrument too much. It almost became a constrain for us, and everything went back to how the original worked in some way. Even if the body parts might be different, then the direction of the movement might still be the same. One feedback that we received during the show and tell might have helped us and it was when designing based on something already existing you should take a decision during the exploration to completely step away from how it works today to see if you can find something new to it. This could be seen as Making it strange which Loke and Robertson (2008) states are a methodology to work with movements so “unsettling habitual perceptions and conceptions of the moving body to arrive at fresh appreciations and perspectives for design that are anchored in the sensing, feeling and moving body.” (Loke & Robertson, 2008, p. 81).
I think that if we could have let go of what we already knew, then we might have landed in something that did not involve arms or hands because even though we from the begging wanted to try other body parts and movements, we never really got to do it. I think it is because we are so locked in our normal behavior for how to interact.
Interactivity has been a challenging course in a good way. After every module, I have had the feeling of ‘okay now I feel ready to start because I now have an understanding of what it is we are doing’. I wish I had the time to redo the projects with the knowledge I have now. Because then I think I would feel that I actually explored the topics and materials to a greater extent.
Loke, L., & Robertson, T. (2008, December). Inventing and devising movement in the design of movement-based interactive systems. In Proceedings of the 20th Australasian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction: Designing for Habitus and Habitat, pp. 81-88.