Energy limiting conditions (ELC), such as long COVID and ME/CFS, require the careful monitoring and pacing of activity and rest to avoid over-exertion. Commercially available fitness tracking technologies are currently being “misused” to manage these conditions. Based on co-design research with people with ELC, we conducted a research-through-design process to ideate upon what ELC pacing technologies could be. Our ongoing design process is informed by crip theories that highlight the social and political, rather than medical, aspects of disability and chronic conditions. In an attempt to offer non-medicalising pacing technologies, we explored integrating bronze casting as a jewelry making technique within the prototyping process. We also explore how we can present quantitative pacing data gathered from wearable sensors through felt vibrations on the body in a way that can be therapeutic and allow for the user to calibrate the quantitative data with their own felt sense of fatigue.

Historically, blood glucose monitoring (BGM) device design has focused on the physiological aspects of diabetes, with less consideration for the psychological aspects of relating the measurement to one's experienced symptoms. In this pictorial, we explore how the subjective experience of blood glucose monitoring can be supported. We developed the BGM diary, a training system for existing BGM devices. The BGM diary involves a practice of guessing and measuring of blood glucose, followed by an annotation of felt symptoms to facilitate learning about experiences and symptoms. We unpack how blood glucose work could involve persons with diabetes in other ways in their care program through an elaboration on the design aspects of the BGM diary and reflections with a diabetes nurse.

Physical computing concerns the design of systems that can sense and respond to the world around them, which is why it is often used in interaction design projects in educational settings. However, students who encounter physical computing for the first time are typically not aware of the form factors and the potential for interaction of the various sensing and actuating possibilities. To complement existing touchpoints that these students have with physical computing, we present electronic smörgåsbords: boards that display collections of physical computing components that are available inhouse in an organised and interactive way to support the initiation of interaction design projects. The development of the boards allowed us to articulate four principles for their design, which are intended to inspire the development of future educational material.

Contemporary self-tracking devices take forms that reflect particular cultures of self-tracking that emphasize clinical perspectives and numerical precision. In this pictorial, we explore alternative forms to speculate on other possible self-tracking cultures. We present how we involved experts on the relationship between the gut and the brain to inspire a design brief for an alternative gut tracking device. This led to the design of Loupe and Lightbox, which together operate to externalize gut biota for closer examination, aesthetic appreciation, and reflection on the self. The device represents an example of self-tracking as cultivation-building a longer-term relationship with the self as something to be nurtured, tended to, and cared about.

Medical devices are moving out of the clinic and into the home. The design of these devices shapes our experience of interacting with our bodies. We attend to ovulation tracking devices that aid conception. We present Ovum; a research product that will be deployed in a long-term, qualitative study with couples trying to conceive. The contributions of this pictorial are the framing of the design space around at-home ovulation tracking devices and the presentation of our approach to this design space through working with oppositional experiential qualities by designing for fertility tracking as a shared, domestic and do-it-yourself experience.

Both a provocative artistic object and research artefact, Blo-nut is part of a project where we explore novel robotic behaviour away from the mimicry of complex human expressions more commonly associated with robotic form and movement. In this pictorial we start by outlining our underlining design principles for the design process and use images to describe the making, real-time GUI and the "choreographic sketching' of Blonut's movement characteristics. Finally, we argue for embracing novel and provoking 'otherness' in form and material when exploring interaction and communication with social robots.

The design of social robots usually does not focus on their kinetic expression, and often follows the assumption that their appearance should be human or animal like. To encourage a broader understanding of the possibilities for design of social robots, and as an inquiry into alternative relations with them, we present two robots, the Lat-Sac and the Blo-Nut, which are purposefully moving away from typical social robot design. We present how we engaged performance experts in the choreographic sketching of their elastic expression, and how we staged the robots in a fictitious near-future scenario to create a discursive space for reflection on emerging relations. Based on these encounters we discuss how acknowledging the otherness of social robots can be valuable in designing as well as growing intriguing relations with them.