Our bodies mediate every interaction with technology, yet - as soma design and feminist HCI remind us - the body is not a neutral canvas. We introduce and examine felt asymmetries - somaesthetic experiences of difference in the body - as a site for generative and critical engagement in interaction design. Through an autobiographical design exploration, and a series of somatic explorations with nine designers including individual inquiries and workshops, we sensitised to, articulated, and shared personal experiences of asymmetry. We draw from these explorations to contribute: (1) Opening a design space exploring the aesthetics of felt asymmetries; (2) Reflections on engaging with asymmetry in design, e.g. as a design material, an estrangement activity or doorway into intimate experience; (3) Considerations for creating technologies that resonate with, rather than erase, the asymmetries of lived experience. We argue that bodily asymmetries are not only to be accommodated in design, but embraced as aesthetic resources - sources of joy, tension, and creativity.

Digital media operates on a curious boundary between storage and loss. While each new storage format promises a permanent solution to our exponentially expanding media libraries, they inevitably fail or otherwise become unusable. This paper reflects on a long-term design process that attempts to bring a different paradigm to the experience of personal digital media: destruction. We present an annotated portfolio of a set of sound listening devices, critically unpacking the particular temporal, perceptual, and experiential qualities that emerge when designing for the loss of personal media. These annotations show how destruction comes to matter in designing against the traditional bias towards growth and accumulation in HCI.

Daily interactions with things are becoming increasingly virtual and hidden, tucked away in minimalist UI’s or dependent on clear voice commands. Motivated by a love for physical interactions, this work uses keys, a mundane, everyday technology, as our object of study, identifying what is being ‘designed away’ in the process of digitalization. This is achieved through a collection of found objects, material samples, and design probes. We present a visual exhibition in pictorial format, where each piece represents material qualities of physical, interactive artefacts. We conclude by discussing how the embodied qualities of these artifacts can be extended to the broader landscape of everyday physical things. Our work contributes to the TEI community through both the tangible artifacts and the identified qualities for designing future physical, everyday, interactive things.

Movement-based design foregrounds the moving and sentient body, fostering holistic engagement with the surrounding physical, material, and sociospatial contexts. Over the years, this approach has yielded multiple methodologies, tools, and exemplars to support body-based ideation. In this studio, we explore tools that facilitate embodied thinking and the creative processes of designing with, through, and for the body. In particular, we focus on: i) embodied ideation tools, kits, and technology probes to prompt ideation; ii) sketching and other documentation techniques to materialize ephemeral embodied action during ideation. We will bring tools and techniques to engage with both aspects, and we will invite participants to bring their own, which can be physical or technological, low or high-fidelity. This hands-on studio will provide a space to collectively engage in embodied ideation and sketching; exploring, analysing, and engaging deeply with the available objects and methods. The studio will culminate in a rich set of visual material and an annotated portfolio, which will be shared with the broader community, fostering connections among designers interested in movement-based and tangible design.

This paper elaborates on design visions for computing, by attending to the values expressed in ideals around post-industrial ways of living. Such ideals highlight finitude not only as a challenge to overcome, but as an aesthetic quality, captured by notions of preciousness. We discuss three themes: to embrace possibilities within limits, to resist fantasies of unlimited power, and welcoming complexity as an inherent feature of the living.