Designing Embodied Smart Textile Services : the Role of Prototypes for Project, Community and Stakeholders
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Designing embodied smart textile services : the role of prototypes for project, community and stakeholders Citation for published version (APA): ten Bhömer, M. (2016). Designing embodied smart textile services : the role of prototypes for project, community and stakeholders Eindhoven: Technische Universiteit Eindhoven Document status and date: Published: 18/02/2016 Document Version: Publisher’s PDF, also known as Version of Record (includes final page, issue and volume numbers) Please check the document version of this publication: • A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. 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If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license above, please follow below link for the End User Agreement: www.tue.nl/taverne Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us at: [email protected] providing details and we will investigate your claim. Download date: 20. Jul. 2019 Designing Embodied Smart Textile Services The role of prototypes for project, community and stakeholders Martijn ten Bhömer Designing Embodied Smart Textile Services The role of prototypes for project, community and stakeholders doctoral dissertation by Martijn ten Bhömer A catalogue record is available from the Eindhoven University of Technology Library ISBN: 978-90-386-4019-8 © 2016, Martijn ten Bhömer All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronical or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission of the author. The work described in this thesis has been carried out as part of the project “Smart Textile Services” sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs under the CRISP program. Cover photo by Joe Hammond. Thesis design by Daan Spangenberg. Designing Embodied Smart Textile Services The role of prototypes for project, community and stakeholders PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, op gezag van de rector magnificus prof.dr.ir. F.P.T. Baaijens, voor een commissie aangewezen door het College voor Promoties, in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 18 februari 2016 om 16:00 uur door Martijn ten Bhömer geboren te Roermond Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotoren en de samenstelling van de promotiecommissie is als volgt: voorzitter: prof. dr. ir. A.C. Brombacher promotor: prof. dr. ir. C.C.M. Hummels copromotoren: dr. O. Tomico Plasencia dr.ir. M.S. Kleinsmann (Delft University of Technology) leden: prof. dr. K. Halskov (Aarhus University) prof. H. Ward (Imperial College London) dr. ir. S.A.G. Wensveen adviseur: J. Berzowska (Concordia University Montreal) Het onderzoek of ontwerp dat in dit proefschrift wordt beschreven is uitgevoerd in overeenstemming met de TU/e Gedragscode Wetenschapsbeoefening. Index Preface ix 4 Scale of the community: Personal Motivation x How prototypes embed the Thesis Structure xi knowledge of the people who are not present 131 4.1 Introduction 133 1 Introduction 17 4.2 Data Selection 135 1.1 Prototypes 19 4.3 Data Documentation 139 1.2 Embodied Interaction 21 4.4 Data Codification 150 1.3 Product-service Systems 23 4.5 Data Analysis 157 1.4 Smart Textile Services 25 4.6 Findings 171 1.5 Participatory Design 27 4.7 Conclusions 176 1.6 Collaboration 29 1.7 Sense-making 30 1.8 Summary 31 5 Scale of the stakeholders: How prototypes support making sense of Service Interfaces that 2 Scale of the PSS: are not there 187 Three embodied smart textile 5.1 Introduction 189 services (Tactile Dialogues, 5.2 Data Selection 193 Vigour, Vibe-ing) 33 5.3 Data Documentation 194 2.1 Challenge 35 5.4 Data Codification 199 2.2 Existing Smart Textile 5.5 Data Analysis 212 Services 36 5.6 Findings 220 2.3 Tactile Dialogues: 5.7 Conclusions 221 keeping dementia patients in touch with their families 39 2.4 Vigour: a knitted cardigan that 6 Reflections 227 keeps people active 51 6.1 Implications for 2.5 Vibe-ing: a self-care tool for Smart Textile entrepreneurs 228 personal well-being 59 6.2 Implications for 2.6 Conclusions 66 Service Designers 230 6.3 Implications for Design Researchers 232 3 Scale of the project: How prototypes move the PSS Bibliography 237 that does not exist yet 71 Appendix A: Process Overview 245 3.1 Introduction 73 Publications from this thesis 261 3.2 Data Selection 77 Press from this thesis 263 3.3 Data Documentation 87 Exhibitions and presentations 3.4 Data Codification 103 from this thesis 266 3.5 Data Analysis 113 Summary 271 3.6 Findings 120 Acknowledgements 277 3.7 Conclusions 125 Curriculum Vitae 281 vii Preface ix 1.1 Personal Motivation The age of wearables has been a prophecy for decades, with visions such as the disappearing computer (Weiser & Brown, 1997) bringing technology everywhere around us. The miniaturisation of technology is reaching a point where we can finally start to evaluate the results that this vision has brought us. Increasingly, previously rigid and hard technology is being transformed and shaped to the body: for example, in wristbands, activity trackers and glasses. With these devices here, there is still one question that is mainly unanswered: how can these close-to-the-body technologies create value for us as human beings? While wearing my activity tracker during the day and clipping my sleep tracker to my pillow by night, I personally still have not found the compelling reason to keep using these systems. Waking up in the morning and checking my latest sleep statistics, I cannot help but feel like an actor in a complex information system. My activity tracker, which ended up somewhere in a drawer after a few months of use, could only seduce me to admire its fancy graphs in the first weeks, but was it truly giving me value and letting me connect to my bodily experiences? Can these mass-produced products take an intimate role in our lives, and are the design processes traditionally used for consumer products still sufficient? Shouldn’t we look for alternative design processes and new business models to consider the personal impact of close-to-the-body technology? I noticed during my experiences as Interaction Designer before this PhD project that the subtleties we designed often would not make it to the end product in the transition process from concept to market. For example, in 2010 I was working with two other designers in a start-up to create intelligent lighting for consumers. We made prototypes and had many ideas how these lights could help users in their daily lives. However, transforming these design ideas into a business plan that could show the unique value of our product to investors was a challenge because we were unable to communicate the value proposition in the right language. This will become even more urgent in the context of close-to-the-body applications. An eclectic mix of disciplines such as electronic engineers, textile engineers, fashion designers and service providers might have to work together in order to realise a new product category, beyond the wristwatch or activity tracker. It is my belief that the designer can have a large responsibility to take multiple values and perspectives into consideration to come to economically viable and socially relevant results. How can we design in this way, from a bottom-up perspective, integrating people’s context and fulfilling the expectations of all the stakeholders involved? Within the field of Industrial Design there is a growing trend where products are moving more and more into directions where services are integrated seamlessly with their physical counterparts into intelligent systems. During my education as an Industrial Designer I gained all types of knowledge and methodologies to bring the user into the design process, to evaluate the experience for the end-user. x Preface Working as an Interaction Designer after my graduation opened up a new world, where dealing with production partners, service providers or investors was as important as designing for the end-user. I believe that in processes with multiple partners it is not the role of the designer to just be a facilitator of this process, but rather to engage in the project on an equal level with other partners with our specific skills. A complex system inherently consists of many individual perspectives, which makes it difficult to assign authorship and ownership. My research approach, embedded within the Designing Quality in Interaction research group, is inspired by phenomenology, embodied cognition and the ecological theory of perception, which all take the body-in-action as a starting point and which do not make the Cartesian mind-body division.