About this Research Topic
This Research Topic seeks to explore the following questions: what happens to our interactive technology when we align our designs with the internal complexity of the human body’s interconnected, physical, and biological networks first? That is, can we design technology beyond the interaction component to leverage the body’s internal complexity as a design resource? These questions are drivers in what we have called the “Inbodied Interaction” approach to design and engineer interactive systems.
Our goal in this Frontiers Special Research Topic is to develop examples of how this Inbodied Interaction approach can help us fundamentally re-imagine the interactive technology of work, workplaces, home, education, and play. In particular, we challenge ourselves to ask: where we focus on the effects of aligning our approach with the inbodied first, from individual to infrastructure, how does this orientation make it easier for us all to build the knowledge, skills, and practice we need to be healthy, effective, creative and resilient.
ORIENTATION. Inbodied Interaction postulates that we can do a better job exploring these questions if we understand more about our internal physiological complexity, in order to leverage such models in designs that aim to address these challenges. To that end, Inbodied Interaction takes as its orientation that:
(1) the body is the site of constant - and we mean constant - adaptation
(2) all human processes - physical, mental, emotional - are mediated by our internal physical organ systems and are constantly affected by the state of those networks
(3) by designing tools that work to support these processes, we can radically re-imagine sustainable resilience, thereby helping to “make normal better”, for all, at scale
(4) by aligning design to support our inbodied, adaptive processes first, we support not only our health, but our creativity, compassion, innovation, social interaction, and brilliance.
For more information about these models, they are outlined in the IX Special Topic on Inbodied Interaction. Reviewing these articles will help authors better situate their work in an Inbodied Interaction context. We particularly encourage authors to engage with Inbodied Interaction framings including the Inbodied 5 (In5), Circumbodied 4 (C4), as well as Tuning, as design approaches. We are also interested in how Continua such as insourcing to outsourcing,draw on the inbodied, for example, outsourcing with the ENA bike, or insourcing with Experiment in a Box. We are keen to explore how Discomfort as Design Material might also be used in developing inbodied-aligned stages of interaction.
Examples of Inbodied Interaction applications might include using knowledge about chronobiology (one of the C4) and movement (one of the In5) with different cognitive types of work (another In5) in order to consider questions such as: How might we design to support different types of meetings to leverage the right kind of position or movement for the right kind of process? Does brainstorming use the same movement as financial review? And if distinct, how can inbodied approaches support these various activities and needs? Our focus is therefore not just on technology to support individual users, but we also emphasize consideration of interactive infrastructure to enhance quality of life (aligned with our inbodied adaptivity) and make it accessible and normal for all, at scale.
If you have questions, please email us. This Research Topic follows from our Inbodied Interaction Summer School, TEI Workshop, fourth CHI workshop, and associated CHI2021 courses (inbodied101, inbodied102). We will also be supporting those interested in workshopping their papers, throughout our virtual inbodied interaction summer school 2021.
We look forward to working with you to help #makeNormalBetter.
Our goal in this Frontiers Special Research Topic is to develop examples of how this Inbodied Interaction approach can help us fundamentally re-imagine the interactive technology of work, workplaces, home, education, and play. In particular, we challenge ourselves to ask: where we focus on the effects of aligning our approach with the inbodied first, from individual to infrastructure, how does this orientation make it easier for us all to build the knowledge, skills, and practice we need to be healthy, effective, creative and resilient.
ORIENTATION. Inbodied Interaction postulates that we can do a better job exploring these questions if we understand more about our internal physiological complexity, in order to leverage such models in designs that aim to address these challenges. To that end, Inbodied Interaction takes as its orientation that:
(1) the body is the site of constant - and we mean constant - adaptation
(2) all human processes - physical, mental, emotional - are mediated by our internal physical organ systems and are constantly affected by the state of those networks
(3) by designing tools that work to support these processes, we can radically re-imagine sustainable resilience, thereby helping to “make normal better”, for all, at scale
(4) by aligning design to support our inbodied, adaptive processes first, we support not only our health, but our creativity, compassion, innovation, social interaction, and brilliance.
For more information about these models, they are outlined in the IX Special Topic on Inbodied Interaction. Reviewing these articles will help authors better situate their work in an Inbodied Interaction context. We particularly encourage authors to engage with Inbodied Interaction framings including the Inbodied 5 (In5), Circumbodied 4 (C4), as well as Tuning, as design approaches. We are also interested in how Continua such as insourcing to outsourcing,draw on the inbodied, for example, outsourcing with the ENA bike, or insourcing with Experiment in a Box. We are keen to explore how Discomfort as Design Material might also be used in developing inbodied-aligned stages of interaction.
Examples of Inbodied Interaction applications might include using knowledge about chronobiology (one of the C4) and movement (one of the In5) with different cognitive types of work (another In5) in order to consider questions such as: How might we design to support different types of meetings to leverage the right kind of position or movement for the right kind of process? Does brainstorming use the same movement as financial review? And if distinct, how can inbodied approaches support these various activities and needs? Our focus is therefore not just on technology to support individual users, but we also emphasize consideration of interactive infrastructure to enhance quality of life (aligned with our inbodied adaptivity) and make it accessible and normal for all, at scale.
If you have questions, please email us. This Research Topic follows from our Inbodied Interaction Summer School, TEI Workshop, fourth CHI workshop, and associated CHI2021 courses (inbodied101, inbodied102). We will also be supporting those interested in workshopping their papers, throughout our virtual inbodied interaction summer school 2021.
We look forward to working with you to help #makeNormalBetter.
Keywords: Inbodied Interaction
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
