Virtual Reality (VR) locomotion methods are mainly ground-based, room-scale, or discrete, making them ill-suited for flying experiences. Although leaning- and controller-based techniques are promising for flying in VR, we lack empirical evidence of their advantages. We compared combinations of leaning- and controller-based methods for steering and velocity in a user study (N = 24) using a broom metaphor to integrate these methods into an understandable locomotion reference. The steering methods were: 1) controller-pointing (CP) and 2) headset-leaning (HL); and for velocity control: 1) controller linear displacement (CLD) and 2) headset linear displacement (HLD). Results indicate that HL increase presence compared to CP. However, combining HL with CLD worsens coin collection rate, completion time, mental load, control factor ratings, and enjoyment. In contrast, HLD worked well when paired with either steering method. CP-CLD led to the highest coin collection rate and lowest mental load. All methods had comparable feelings of flying.

Feminist research highlights the urgent need to challenge the oppressive design of commercial intimate technologies, particularly how the FemTech industry restricts access to intimate bodily knowledge through paywalls and proprietary systems. Yet, for decades, women and marginalized communities have turned to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) or ‘hacking’ practices to reclaim control over their own gynecology and intimate health, addressing gaps often ignored by medical research and healthcare. Inspired by visual themes from these movements, this pictorial critically explores how designers and HCI researchers might advance DIY approaches to intimate technologies. We exemplify this with reflections from a series of workshops on handmade intimate sensors, and draw out the joyful potential of collaborative making—building alliances, destigmatizing intimate health, and using craft to subvert gender stereotypes. We discuss matters of safety when making together and contribute to ongoing work on building feminist makerspaces. 

In Autonomous Public Transport (APT), particularly with shuttle buses, passengers travel in smaller, more intimate vehicles—and in the future, such vehicles may operate without an authoritative driver or host. This setup may lead to potential safety concerns, as passengers are left alone together. Additionally, this future absence of a driver or host means that there is no one to address questions or uncertainties that may arise. One proposed solution is introducing a robot onboard the bus, serving a similar role to a human host. To explore this solution, an experiment was conducted in Barkarby, Stockholm, Sweden. Passengers, generally unfamiliar with APT or social robots, experienced two short rides on a bus equipped with either an embodied Furhat robot as the host or a disembodied voice agent in the ceiling. Data were collected from passenger-agent interactions, post-questionnaires, and semi-structured focus group interviews. Results indicate a division in passenger preferences, with some favoring the robot and others the voice assistant. Passengers asked more questions to the robot, suggesting a clearer affordance for interaction. While the questionnaires did not show significant differences, passenger behaviors indicated that they anthropomorphized the robot more. The interviews revealed that passengers felt more secure with a human operator and doubted the robot’s authority during incidents with aggressive passengers or accidents. Our findings show that social robots can help make autonomous buses feel more welcoming and interactive. Future APT systems have many design issues that need to be resolved before riders can find them safe and appropriate to use, and social robots can play a role in resolving such issues—both the ones we see today, and potentially ones that will appear in the future.

Bodily fluids associated with the menstruating body are often disregarded in the design of menstrual-tracking technologies despite their potential to provide valuable knowledge about the menstrual cycle. We prototyped a finger-worn sensor that measures vaginal fluid conductivity, which fluctuates throughout the cycle, and brought it into conversation with people through two speculative workshops (18 people), four fabrication workshops (17 people), and a deployment study where participants brought the sensor into their daily lives (7 people). We unpack that taking a material and sensory approach to intimate tracking nurtures a feminist way of sensing while creating tensions around how we want to know our bodies—tensions around how, where, and when to touch the body, hygiene, data storage, interpretation practices, and labor. With epistemological commitments to feminist materialist and posthuman theory, we invite designers to embrace these tensions.