Domestic IoT appliances like smart speakers, smart locks and robot vacuum cleaners are usually connected through smartphone apps to provide additional functionality and remote control. Although smartphones have many different sensors and actuators, these apps provide a primarily graphical user interface with these appliances. To explore a more somatically engaging experience the prototype JoyTilt was designed, developed and tested with users. JoyTilt enables its user to control a robot vacuum cleaner like a toy car by tilting their phone in the direction they want it to go. This study found that the participants had their gaze focused on the robotic vacuum cleaner while controlling it and that the participants had both positive and negative bodily experiences with JoyTilt. Interviews with the participants provide suggestions for balancing control of robot vacuum cleaners and keeping the robot’s autonomy using JoyTilt. In this study the aesthetics of the material, choice of materials and choice of interaction model come together in the design of JoyTilt to shape the human-robot relationship. Lastly, the thesis highlights the values of further considering the bodily experience when designing apps. / Uppkopplade produkter för hemmabruk så som smarta högtalare, smarta lås och larm eller robotdammsugare kopplas till våra smartphones via appar som möjliggör ytterligare funktioner, exempelvis fjärrstyrning och schemaläggning. Trots att smartphones innehåller en mängd olika sensorer används i regel primärt grafiskt gränssnitt i dessa appar. Genom att designa, utveckla och testa prototypen JoyTilt utforskas en somaestetisk användarupplevelse med fokus på den fysiska upplevelsen. Med appen JoyTilt kan en robotdammsugare styras likt en radiostyrd bil genom att luta smartphonen. I testerna med JoyTilt hade deltagarna sin blick fästa på robotdammsugaren när de styrde den. Deltagarna hade både positiva och negativa kroppsliga upplevelser av Joytilt. Från intervjuerna med deltagarna kom förslag på sätt att balansera kontroll av robotdammsugaren med dess autonomi med hjälp av JoyTilt. Val av designmaterial, dess estetik och interaktionsmodell bidrog till utformningen av JoyTilt som i sin tur påverkade relationen mellan människa och robot. Slutligen understryker den här studien värdet av att ta den kroppsliga upplevelsen i beaktning och nyttja det ofta förbisedda fysiska designutrymmet i appdesign.

We increasingly move through and with technology in our homes. One could, using a dance metaphor, view our home as a stage where we become unintentional performers to an audience of digital devices. Still, the way we interact with our devices is mostly based on us, as humans, adapting to the technology – leading to technology-driven products rather than humanistic. By involving dancers and learning from choreographic approaches, the project aim is to consider the body in the design process to form more humanistic interactions where the technology adapts to our personal ways of moving.  Through interviews, autobiographical research, recurring workshops with professional dancers, and prototyping, the realisation came digital devices make us unlearn how to move creatively at an earlier stage but that feedback on our movements together with how a space is designed can encourage it. Furthermore, that when designing for movement one has a lot of power, since while claiming what is the right movement one is at the same time deciding what is the wrong movement– which might lead to exclusion. This led to the outcome of the project which suggest a way in which we might evaluate Choreographic Interfaces based on how open for personalisation they are. From this a concept is proposed where what role digital devices should have in our home is redefined.  Instead of using conventional ways of interacting with digital devices (e.g., buttons, phone, voice assistant, motion sensors), this project takes the shape of a system which lets the user configure and manage devices using existing “choreographies” and routines that naturally develop over time when people live together. The system learns how people move at home during different times and manifests it in contextual ”zones”, which, through visual feedback, allow users to change the appearance of their space, such as setting the room up for play mode, meditation, or a morning stretch. The suggestion is that future movement technologies might enable us to redefine how we live our lives at home through eliciting joy, play, and wellbeing while we interact with our digital devices.  This project aims to contribute to the field of interaction design through suggesting a shift away from designers creating each interaction and the users just adapting to them. Instead, the suggestion is the approach of Choreographic Interfaces where the designer empower the user to utilise their personal way of moving and encourages an active relationship with their devices at home.