Designing for Intercorporeality : An Interaction Design Approach to Technology-Supported Movement Learning

Abstract: Technology-supported movement learning has emerged as an area with ample possibilities within Human Computer Interaction and Interaction Design, as interactive technology can help people to develop and improve sensorimotor competencies. To date, design research has largely focused on technology development and on supporting individual learning experiences. However, it has engaged less with the social and situated contexts of movement learning. This dissertation proposes an interaction design approach that focuses on such contexts: designing for intercorporeality. This approach aims at enhancing how people teach and learn movement by designing and using biofeedback technologies.Designing for intercorporeality is theoretically grounded in phenomenology and situated perspectives on movement learning. Focused on the fitness domain, it is empirically grounded in analytical studies of social fitness practices and in three design projects in the contexts of yoga, circus training and strength training. Following a research through design methodology, the projects center on developing a particular form of biofeedback artefacts, the Training Technology Probes (TTPs), that extend people’s appreciation of their own and the others’ movement. The projects also center on designing the use of the TTPs as interactional resources that enhance the teachers’ and students’ ability to articulate, communicate, understand and act on movement knowledge.Designing for intercorporeality presents three defining characteristics. First, a set of aesthetic ideals on what designs should incorporate to enhance teaching and learning. These relate to enhancing people’s movement appreciation and supporting them in building relevant meaning and action to address the practice’s movements. Second, it presents design knowledge in the form of a strong concept: intercorporeal biofeedback. The concept captures interactive use patterns between people and technology, illustrating how the aesthetic ideals can be incorporated in the designs. The third characteristic concerns the designs’ effects on people’s experience, which show how the design approach enhances how people teach and learn movement.Through articulating designing for intercorporeality, this dissertation broadens and deepens design research in the area of technology-supported movement learning in Human Computer Interaction and Interaction Design. It contributes design knowledge on how to design interactive technologies that can meaningfully cater and add to the social and situated contexts of movement learning.