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In today’s ‘attention economy’, it seems insufficient to just offer products. Instead, it is crucial to provide the audience with deep, affective emotions and embodied experiences. This seems to be especially true for the fashion and lifestyle sector. As Sara Rossoni, a researcher in luxury management, summarizes, this industry is becoming a “trade of feelings” (2018, 40). To arrive at a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon, this degree project approaches it through a case study of the transmedia story told across two media products released alongside the fashion house Balenciaga’s Fall 2021 collection. Thereby, the analysis is based on the ‘trade of feelings’ concept by Rossoni (2018) as an umbrella term to examine how the campaign connects emotionally with the audience and forms deep relationships. Various theories are integrated to get a comprehensive overview of the factors at play. They include embodied interaction, immersiveness, embodied presence, the inner branding model, experiential value, as well as gamification. The methodological approach is based on multimodal critical dis- course analysis according to Machin & Mayr (2012), which is combined with parts of the framework for transmedia storytelling by Gambarato (2013). The results indicate that there are intrinsically linked forces at play in this emotional bonding process – the multimodal features of the media products combined create an emotional, immersive, and embodied experience for the consumer. Particularly, among other aspects, this is achieved through an accessible, widespread release strategy; a unique, captivating virtual environment; gamification elements; as well as communicating relevant values to the Generation Z target audience and hence stimulating collective knowledge sharing among the brands’ fan community. Concluding, this thesis provides a comprehensive overview of the different emotional processes in these highly experiential fashion branding activities. Hence, it shows that this is a complex phenomenon with interrelated factors at play, with most of them happening on an unconscious dimension in the consumers’ mind. As there are certain limitations concerning this qualitative study rooted in subjectivity and the single-case approach, it would be effective for future research studies to employ more quantitative methods to arrive at more valid conclusions concerning this development in fashion and lifestyle branding.

Movement-based interactive systems for play came into the spotlight over a decade ago, and were met with enthusiasm by the general public as well as the Human-Computer Interaction research community. Yet a decade of research and practice has not fully addressed the challenge of designing for the moving body and play. This thesis argues that often, the role of the technology to sustain the play activity, and to drive the design process, has been over-emphasized, and has resulted in limited design possibilities. This thesis explores an alternative design approach to address the problem through combining the design of the technology with designing aspects of the social and spatial context where the play activity takes place. The work is grounded in an embodied perspective of experience, action, and design. Methodologically, it belongs to the Research through Design tradition (RtD). A core concept and a characterization of design practices are presented as key contributions. The concept of embodied core mechanics is introduced to frame desirable and repeatable movement-based play actions, paying attention to the way these are supported by design resources including rules, physical and digital artifacts, and the physical and spatial arrangement of players and artifacts. The concept was developed during the two main design cases: the Oriboo case, targeting dance games for children, and the PhySeEar case, targeting rehabilitative therapy for the elderly. It was further substantiated in subsequent external design collaborations. To support the design process, this thesis presents embodied sketching: a set of ideation design practices that leverage the embodied experience and enable designers to scrutinize the desired embodied experience early in the design process. Three forms of embodied sketching are presented: embodied sketching for bodystorming, co-designing with users, and sensitizing designers. Through reframing the design task as one of designing and studying embodied core mechanics, this thesis establishes an alternative approach to design for movement-based play in which significant aspects of the embodied play experience, lead, drive, and shape the design process and the design of the technology.

Digital fabrication technologies such as 3D printing is predicted to have a significant impact on our future society. However, the complexity of current 3D modelling softwares  risk deterring novices from engaging with the technology. In this thesis, a series of workshops were conducted to explore the implications for novices to create models out of tangible materials such as clay, paper and LEGO, that were then scanned and printed with a 3D printer. The results show that while the tangible materials create engaging opportunities for novices to engage with digital fabrication technologies such as 3D printing, the materials also provide limitations and constraints depending on their physical properties.

Visions of Couture is a project that explores the relationship between high fashion and technology. The aim of this work was to incorporate interactivity in a context, namely fashion, that has always been a pioneer in research and innovation but where interactive artefacts have so far had quite a marginal role. After collecting insights through literature review and interviews, the project focused on creating a system for fashion showrooms that would permit users and clients to interact with holographic projections of the models through gestures. This system allows for a slower and more attentive interaction, in contrast with the frenzy of the fashion show, letting the users linger on the looks they are interested in and possibly overcoming the space and time limitations that fashion showrooms usually have. The result of this project is a system composed of a holographic projection mesh and a wearable bracelet to recognise gestures. The bracelet contains an Arduino Nano 33 BLE that has been trained through Machine Learning to recognise the selected gestures and communicates with Processing to play the right videos. The project suggests a way to use holography as a mean for a shared and embodied mixed reality experience and a path for designing comfortable gesture interactions that are intuitive and coherent with the context. Crucial to this project were the concepts of embodiment, corporality, shared mixed reality and intuitive gestures.

Self-image and the way we present ourselves to the world are highly relevant in today’s society, fostered to some extent by the ubiquitous use of technology. For example, the idealized body image that is disseminated in the media and on social networks can affect the relationship we have with ourselves. Beyond the idyllic images promoted by external agents, there is a personal aspect that also defines who we are and how we relate to our environment; that is self-fashioning, a constant self-driven, ameliorative change in accordance to the ideals promoted by somaesthetics. In line with this approach, our bodies could be understood as spaces for self-design to increase somaesthetic appreciation, both of ourselves and the world. This thesis discusses some early considerations for the development of self-fashioning technologies and the exploration of the design space. By conducting a soma-oriented workshop and a subsequent first-person exploration, I introduce a set of design features that might be addressed when devising embodied artifacts. They highlight the importance of "constant becoming," a situated ongoing process that shapes us, arguing that technologies for self-fashioning should support it. / Självbilden och hur vi presenterar oss för världen är högst relevanta i dagens samhälle, delvis underblåst av den allestädes närvarande användningen av teknik. Till exempel kan den idealiserade kroppsbild som sprids i medierna och på sociala nätverk påverka relationen vi har till oss själva. Utöver de idylliska bilder som främjas av externa agenter finns det en personlig aspekt som också definierar vilka vi är och hur vi förhåller oss till vår miljö; det vill säga self-fashioning, en konstant självdriven och förbättrande förändring i enlighet med de ideal som främjas av somaestetiken. I linje med detta synsätt kan våra kroppar förstås som utrymmen för självutformning för att öka somaestetisk uppskattning, både av oss själva och av världen. Denna uppsats diskuterar några tidiga överväganden för utformningen av self-fashioning teknologier och utforskningen av designutrymmet. Genom en soma-orienterad workshop och en efterföljande förstapersonsutforskning presenterar jag en uppsättning designfunktioner som kan hanteras när man designar inbäddade artefakter. De betonar vikten av "constantly becoming", en situerad pågående process som formar oss, och argumenterar för att teknologier för self-fashioning bör stödja det.

Feminist self-defense is a form of victim prevention training with a plethora of positive physical, mental, and social outcomes. In Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) self-defense is still a relatively under-researched topic. As such, inspired by HCI’s recent interest in feminist causes and corporeal practices, the goal of the study is to explore how embodied interaction design can empower beginner self-defense practitioners. To do so, the study was conducted via two methods: semi-structured interviews with students and teachers, and a participatory speculative design workshop with novice practitioners. This resulted in several speculative design concepts based on the use of felt experiences as a design resource. The concepts demonstrate how design can be used as a vehicle for imagining feminist technology that challenges gender norms and plays the role of scaffolding for cultivating embodied empowerment.

<p><em>Tangible social network system is a home-based communication solution specifically designed for elders. Former researches indicate that insufficient communication among elders cause several challenges in their daily activities such as social isolation, loneliness, depression and decreased appetite. In addition, lack of social participation increases the risk of Alzheimer´s (Ligt Enid, 1990). The major cause of these challenges are that elders are increasingly removed from communication technology using emails, text messaging, interact with social network systems and mobile phones due to cognitive and physical difficulties. To overcome this problem, new suggested social network system incorporates photo frame and photo album based interaction which allows instantaneous participation to the social network. By designing the new social network system, I tried to create an easier venue for more active cross-generational communication between elders and younger family members.This paper discusses the early results of the marker based social networking system aiming to propose digital technologies to enhance the social life of older people, who live alone their home. A prototype combining a touch screen, photo frame and a camera are described. It allows the older people to manage their participation to the social network system and get in touch with their loved ones. This paper demonstrates a User Sensitive inclusive Design (USID) process from the generation of user needs to the evaluation prototype. A key theme of tangible social network system shows how usable and emotional design derived from a user inclusive design process can encourage elders to adopt new modern technology. A first evaluation has shown the usability as well as the good acceptance of this system.</em></p> / AGNES

No description available.

Tangible social network system is a home-based communication solution specifically designed for elders. Former researches indicate that insufficient communication among elders cause several challenges in their daily activities such as social isolation, loneliness, depression and decreased appetite. In addition, lack of social participation increases the risk of Alzheimer´s (Ligt Enid, 1990). The major cause of these challenges are that elders are increasingly removed from communication technology using emails, text messaging, interact with social network systems and mobile phones due to cognitive and physical difficulties. To overcome this problem, new suggested social network system incorporates photo frame and photo album based interaction which allows instantaneous participation to the social network. By designing the new social network system, I tried to create an easier venue for more active cross-generational communication between elders and younger family members.This paper discusses the early results of the marker based social networking system aiming to propose digital technologies to enhance the social life of older people, who live alone their home. A prototype combining a touch screen, photo frame and a camera are described. It allows the older people to manage their participation to the social network system and get in touch with their loved ones. This paper demonstrates a User Sensitive inclusive Design (USID) process from the generation of user needs to the evaluation prototype. A key theme of tangible social network system shows how usable and emotional design derived from a user inclusive design process can encourage elders to adopt new modern technology. A first evaluation has shown the usability as well as the good acceptance of this system. / AGNES