Validating Soma Design

The purpose of this project is to assess validity in interaction design processes, with a take-off in soma design.

Recent developments in technological materials shape novel types of dynamic actuation in interactions close to our bodies.

We have developed and articulated soma design, which entails a shift from the symbolic, language-oriented stance in interaction design, to a first person, experiential, felt, aesthetic stance. It has become a highly generative framework, bringing out a range of interesting designs.

This proposed four-year project will move beyond interesting outcomes and examine which elements in soma design that contribute to successful design processes – the validity in soma design.

Through detailed studies of ongoing and finished soma design processes, we will get closer to what is happening inside the creative design process, meticulously documenting designers’ experiences as they attend to, and alter, their somatic experiences, in parallel attending to affordances of the digital material.

The project will trace how the elements of a specific design approach influences the design process, and how they contribute to desired outcomes.

The expected design theoretical contributions will be an assessment of the validity of soma design in understanding concepts such as generativity, transferability, and scope.

Following this, our second contribution is a conceptual framework that can be applied in assessing the validity of other design approaches.