Augmenting Appearance with Wearable Technology - Open-ended Practices-oriented Design for Adornment and Identity as Routes to Adoption

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School of Science | Doctoral thesis (article-based) | Defence date: 2023-10-27
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Authors

Date

2023

Department

Tietotekniikan laitos
Department of Computer Science
Muotoilun laitos
Department of Design

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Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

116 + app. 87

Series

Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL THESES, 179/2023

Abstract

Adornment, as a practice that expresses personality through appearance alterations based on clothing and other embellishments, is fundamental to all cultures. Hence, the social function of 'wearables' exemplifies a core application of technology. In the last two decades, advancements in wearable and ubiquitous computing have yielded novel forms of augmenting humans' appearance and face-to-face social interactions, ranging from smart clothing/accessories to bodily and augmented-reality-based modifications. Yet, notwithstanding its potential to drastically alter our social lives, the adoption of wearable technology has been limited to primarily health-related applications. Studies of 'social wearables' and expressive technologies have revealed barriers to adoption related to social acceptability and identity conflicts. Though recent efforts have led to guidelines and frameworks, the challenges of designing to overcome those hindrances remain. Conceptualising wearable technologies for appearance augmentation in terms of the social practice of augmented adornment, this doctoral research investigated how augmented adornment shapes social practices and identities. Utilising generative design research, it identified design guidelines that support the adoption of interactive expressive wearable technologies. Following an approach wherein the investigation and design process are centred on the practice, not the user, the work drew together ethnographic fieldwork, co-creative design, and open-ended technological interventions. The dissertation presents three case studies of employing practices-oriented design to investigate social practices of adornment in situ in Finland: an exploratory case study considering a zoomorphic accessory for eliciting social touch; an exploratory study examining opportunities for displaying personal sketches on one's clothing in urban public spaces; and an extensive investigation, conducted over a two-year span, of the striking tradition of Finnish university students wearing and adorning boiler suits. All three field studies revealed ways in which the meanings of a personal-identity-connected adornment practice form a crucial aspect of augmenting appearance, with the final study demonstrating an especially vivid interplay between embracing local traditions and standing out through individualistic adornments – the students linked their novel practices of augmented adorning to an existing digital practice, e.g. memeing. The findings exemplify an open-ended, dialogue-based perspective and a practices-oriented approach for generating further intermediate design knowledge. As a first milestone, the work presents a strong concept for design called Memetic Expression. By situating augmented adornment in context as a social practice, the results should assist designers in embedding social wearables in people's lives. The design approaches presented offer assistance in working through conflicts that might arise by merging digital practices with adornment and helping pinpoint routes to adoption.

Description

Supervising professor

Nieminen, Marko, Prof., Aalto University, Department of Computer Science, Finland; Keinonen, Turkka, Prof., Aalto University, Department of Design, Finland

Thesis advisor

Salovaara, Antti, Aalto University, Finland
Mekler, Elisa D., Asst. Prof., IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Keywords

wearable computing, design, social interaction

Other note

Parts

  • [Publication 1]: Felix Anand Epp, Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, Maria Karyda, David Mc-Gookin, and Andrés Lucero. Collocated Sharing of Presentations of Self in Public Settings. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia (MUM ’20), Essen, Germany, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 191–200, Honorable Mention, November 2020.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-2020113020478
    DOI: 10.1145/3428361.3428380 View at publisher
  • [Publication 2]: Patrycja Zdziarska, Felix Anand Epp, Walther Jensen, Mark D. Gross, and Ellen Yi-Luen Do. Hooze: A Kinetic Fashion Accessory for Touch and Play. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI ’19), Tempe, AZ, USA, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 407–413, March 2019.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-201906033476
    DOI: 10.1145/3294109.3300980 View at publisher
  • [Publication 3]: Felix Anand Epp. Expressive Wearables: Practices-Oriented Codesign for New Forms of Social Mobile Technology. International Journal of Mobile Human Computer Interaction, 11, 4, 15 pages, October 2019.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-201910045610
    DOI: 10.4018/IJMHCI.2019100101 View at publisher
  • [Publication 4]: Felix Anand Epp, Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, Andrés Lucero, and Tapio Takala. Identity through Social Wearables: Designing with Finnish University Students. In Proceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human–Computer Interaction: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society (NordiCHI ’20), New York, NY, USA, article 44, October 2020.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202010306207.DOI:
  • [Publication 5]: Felix Anand Epp, Anna Kantosalo, Nehal Jain, Andrés Lucero, and Elisa D. Mekler. Adorned in Memes: Exploring the Adoption of Social Wearables in Nordic Student Culture. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’22), New Orleans, LA, USA, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 18 pages, April 2022.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202205043013
    DOI: 10.1145/3491102.3517733 View at publisher

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Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-64-1496-6

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[diss] Perustieteiden korkeakoulu / SCI