Movement-Based Interactive Textiles Design for Emotion Regulation

Abstract

OVERVIEW Textiles have always been an important carrier for people to express their emotions. Wearable technology brings the power of computing closer to body, which has led to the rising focus of the design of bodily emotion-related interactive textiles. Body engaged affective design for emotion regulation has become a trend in the field of games and interactive art, but the advantages of interactive textiles in this field have not been systematically studied and fully developed. This research aims to explore ways to enhance the potential of smart textiles in assisting emotion regulation of users with movement-based interaction. The research follows the Research through Design approach. Preliminary results show that several different emotion regulation strategies can be applied to the design of movement-based interactive textiles. This research offers a new perspective on the potential of emotion regulation with interactive textiles and will contribute to a deeper understanding of movement engaged affective design.

Keywords:

• interactive textiles
• emotion regulation
• smart textiles
• embodied interaction
• research through design
• movement-based interaction

Acknowledgements

This research is supervised by A/Prof Hai-Ning Liang, Dr Martijn ten Bhömer, Dr Benjamin Salem Bernard, A/Prof. Cheng-Hung Lo.

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported in part by Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Research Development Fund (RDF-17-01-54).

Notes on contributors

Mengqi Jiang

Mengqi Jiang has a master’s degree from Politecnico di Milano, Italy. In 2018, she started her PhD study at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China. Her research interests lie in affective design, interactive textiles design, embodied interaction and e-textiles.