ISSN: 1795-6889 www.humantechnology.jyu.fi Volume 12(2), November 2016, 193–251 BODYSTORMING FOR MOVEMENT-BASED INTERACTION DESIGN Elena Márquez Segura Laia Turmo Vidal Department of Informatics and Media Department of Informatics and Media Uppsala University Uppsala University Sweden Sweden Department of Computational Media University of California, Santa Cruz USA Asreen Rostami Department of Computer and Systems Sciences Stockholm University Sweden Abstract: After a decade of movement-based interaction in human–computer interaction, designing for the moving body still remains a challenge. Research in this field requires methods to help access, articulate, and harness embodied experiences in ways that can inform the design process. To address this challenge, this article appropriates bodystorming, an embodied ideation method for movement-based interaction design. The proposed method allows for early consideration of the physical, collocated, and social aspects of a designed activity as illustrated with two explorative workshops in different application domains: interactive body games and interactive performances. Using a qualitative methods approach, we used video material from the workshops, feedback from participants, and our own experience as participants and facilitators to outline important characteristics of the bodystorming method in the domain of movement-based interaction. The proposed method is compared with previous ones and application implications are discussed. Keywords: movement-based interaction, design methods, embodied interaction, bodystorming, ideation methods, play. © 2016 Elena Márquez Segura, Laia Turmo Vidal, & Asreen Rostami, and the Agora Center, University of Jyväskylä DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17011/ht/urn.201611174655 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License. 193 Márquez Segura, Turmo Vidal, & Rostami INTRODUCTION Theories of embodied interaction have been gaining traction in human–computer interaction (HCI; Svanæs, 2013), in particular in domains that design for the moving body, such as games and the interactive arts (Alaoui, Bevilacqua, & Jacquemin, 2015; T. Bekker & Sturm, 2009; Loke & Khut, 2011; Wilde, Cassinelli, & Zerroug, 2012). However, HCI researchers have not yet established a set of design practices, methods, and tools that are readily accessible and acceptable to the research community (Höök et al., 2015; Lee, Lim, & Shusterman, 2014). In the domain of movement-based interaction design, research endeavors have been aimed at understanding what it means to have rich bodily experiences (e.g., Höök, 2010; Loke & Khut, 2011; Loke & Robertson, 2011; Mentis et al., 2014; Schiphorst, 2007, 2011; Wilde, Schiphorst, & Klooster, 2011). A considerable body of work has examined the importance of the social context in shaping the interactive experience (e.g., Gajadhar, de Kort, & Ijsselsteijn, 2008; Jakobs, Manstead, & Fischer, 1996; Magerkurth, Engelke, & Memisoglu, 2004; Manstead, 2005; Márquez Segura & Isbister, 2015). However, the best way to inform the early stages of the design process still remains a challenge. In particular, researchers in HCI have called for methods for describing and accessing embodied experiences that can inform the design process (Höök, 2010) and for ways to articulate insights from such methods and practices. Regarding social play, research has advanced the understanding of the psychological and emotional impact of the social context, even though the published insights remain useful primarily for evaluative purposes (Márquez Segura, Turmo Vidal, Rostami, & Waern, 2016). Works are lacking that integrate both the physical and the social contexts and that formulate and articulate knowledge in ways that can be used by designers and researchers not only analytically but in a generative way (Márquez Segura, 2016). In this article, we argue that, in the domain of interactive playful activities, mainstream design processes overemphasize the role of technology as being both the design goal and the main driver of the design process. This is typically the case in technology-sustained approaches (Waern, 2009), in which designers view technology as that which sustains the whole activity. In such approaches, technical constraints can severely limit design possibilities (Márquez Segura, Waern, Moen & Johansson, 2013). By contrast, we suggest using a technology- supported design approach (Waern, 2009), in which designers view technology only as a part of that which sustains the whole activity. In particular we suggest creating technology-supported designs in which technology is designed together with the sociospatial aspects of the activity that it is designed for (Márquez Segura et al., 2013). As we discuss later in this article, current embodied ideation methods fall short in providing guidance for designing this combination of aspects early in the design process. Drawing from situated and embodied design methods, we propose a new method by appropriating bodystorming in the domain of movement-based interaction. Bodystorming (Oulasvirta, Kurvinen, & Kankainen, 2003; Schleicher, Jones, & Kachur, 2010) is commonly used to refer to brainstorming activities that heavily rely on a rich bodily and situated engagement with the ideation process wherein designers use their bodies to enact design functionality or usage (Burns, Dishman, Johnson, & Verplank, 1995) or because the brainstorming session is performed in a similar environment that is targeted in design (Oulasvirta et al., 2003; Schleicher et al., 2010). Moreover, we recommend using a design practice called embodied sketching to design embodied core mechanics early into the design process. Embodied sketching has already been 194 Brainstorming for Movement-based Interaction Design proposed in Márquez Segura, Turmo Vidal et al. (2016) and Márquez Segura (2016) as an overarching design practice with a set of characterizing principles that distinguish it from previous embodied methods. However, in this article, we go deeper into one specific type of embodied sketching, embodied sketching for bodystorming, by addressing two points. First, we present a review of the existing literature on embodied design methods. Second, we set forth a series of underpinning principles for the concept of bodystorming. These principles are important to understanding the appropriation of the concept of bodystorming as presented in this article. In supporting these points, we report on the analysis of two workshops held in collaboration with colleagues as illustrations of the application of the bodystorming method proposed here within the context of early ideation of design concepts for movement-based collocated social interaction. The first was performed within the design domain of interactive movement-based games in collocated social settings and the second one in the neighboring domain of movement-based interactive performances. The bodystorming method presented here emerged from work in the domain of collocated play and it strongly relies on a social play element. However, the design goal of the second bodystorming workshop did not specifically target collocated play. Hence, despite using very similar approaches to bodystorming, the different application domains and design tasks brought about different types of design activities and outcomes. Yet both workshops were successful in allowing participants to engage in embodied ways of thinking, acting, and cocreating very early in the design process, as well as to come up with ideas on the spot that involved a complex design space of people, technologies, artifacts, and physical and spatial elements. Within such complex design situations, both bodystorming sessions allowed the designers to envision, choreograph, and act through various embodied core mechanics and sociotechnical physical activities. After the presentation of these two instances of bodystorming, important features of the method are presented; some are general features that both cases share, while some are contingent on the particularities of each case. Next, the five underlying principles of the ideation method presented in this paper are revisited and used as analytical lenses to review the bodystorming instantiations presented in this paper and other embodied ideation methods presented in the Background section of this paper. This helps to situate the method presented in this paper among previous research by elaborating on the novelty and substantial contribution that the former presents with respect to the latter. Finally, we present the implications for the application of this method, emphasizing how the contributions of this study can be useful for designers and researchers interested in choreographing embodied activities that are technologically supported. BACKGROUND An Embodied and Technology-Supported Approach to Design In the domain of social play, the use of the social and spatial contexts to influence the situated experience is well established (e.g., Gajadhar et al., 2008; Jakobs et al., 1996; Magerkurth et al., 2004; Manstead, 2005). However, in most design approaches, the focus is on designing an interactive artifact; social and spatial factors as design resources typically are not included. This can lead to very artifact-focused types of interaction (Tholander & Johansson, 2010) and a feeling of playing “alone together” (Ducheneaut, Yee, Nickell, & Moore, 2006; Turkle, 2012). 195 Márquez Segura, Turmo Vidal, & Rostami One major reason behind this is that many designers