Artificial fingernails offer a highly visible, customizable, and accessible surface for translating microfluidic biosensing into a wearable form. We present Lab-on-a-Nail, a research-through-design exploration of artificial fingernails with embedded microfluidic channels and colorimetric sensing elements. We describe the fabrication of functional proof-of-concept prototypes, developed with attention to curvature, scale, materials, and wearability, and show how collaboration with five nail artists informed a second iteration of 3D-printed microfluidic nail designs. Using these artifacts, we conducted a study with 21 women to examine how nail-based microfluidics were interpreted in relation to care, self-advocacy, visibility, and women's health contexts. Across these stages, the nails functioned as design probes that elicited reflections on intimacy, stigma, maintenance, and meaning-making, outlining a design space for biocosmetic interfaces grounded in familiar aesthetic practices and women's health.

Mechanochromic films are micro-structured reflective surfaces that usually shift color from red to green to blue depending on the amount of deformation. While prior research has focused on the fabrication of these films, their potential in HCI remains underexplored. This paper introduces a design space for mechanochromic interfaces that change colors in response to deformation, such as pushing, pulling, shrinking, and stretching. Our contribution includes fabricating the mechanochromic film in multiple variations: substrate color (transparent, non-transparent), substrate form (flat, textured), and mechanochromic film pattern (single-tone, partially patterned by masking method or chemical etching method). We propose mechanochromic interfaces that integrate variations in materiality with variations in actuation mechanisms to produce visual feedback during interaction. Technical evaluations characterize material capabilities, and application scenarios illustrate use in real-world contexts.

Feline urine provides valuable insights into an animal’s well-being. However, professional veterinary urine analysis can be invasive, costly, and infrequent. Electrochemical biosensors, widely used in medical diagnosis, environmental monitoring, food quality control, and drug discovery, offer a promising solution for sensing analytes in feline urine. This paper introduces the "Feline Biofluids IoT Hub" concept that aims at making previously inaccessible biological data in pets’ fluids visible and integrates biofluid sensing with an Internet of Things (IoT) system to enhace comprehensive animal health monitoring. To implement that concept, our project GluCAT includes a biosensing litter box and an activity sensing mat to facilitate the care of diabetic cats. Chronoamperometic data is capture from the electrochemical biosensor using a potentiostat and send to a database via Wi-Fi, providing data visualization through a mobile application. We present electrochemical biosensor tests across five glucose levels. We compare results from feline urine samples with laboratory-grade tests. Furthermore, we share insights from a real-world user study involving a cat interacting with GluCAT for over 50 hours. We envision our project enabling the monitoring of various illnesses by detecting analytes like pH, sodium, and glucose in feline urine using electrochemical biosensors, complemented by data from pet-oriented IoT devices measuring water intake, activity, weight, and food consumption.

The difficulty in reading and interpreting the text has been a common problem in several types of intellectual disability, such as autism and dyslexia. Moreover, it triggers numerous damages to students throughout their academic life. However, this work presents an approach to the inclusive learning of reading, using beauty technology, a playful activities box, and an emotional assessment tool. To verify the approach’s applicability, we tarried out a learning workshop with six students with some literacy difficulty in elementary school. The results showed that the playful experience of nails with the activity box and the tangible evaluation of use could make students feel good when practicing a challenging discipline.

This paper introduces the Sustainable Prototyping Life Cycle for Digital Fabrication, an adaptation from the Life Cycle Assessment method that presents the environmental impact of digital fabrication in every phase of prototyping. The cycle has four phases: raw materials acquisition, manufacturing and distribution, use, and end of life. It presents designers as manufacturers of their own materials for digital fabrication, and bio-based materials are used as an alternative and sustainable prototyping material. We interviewed ten experts in digital fabrication and introduced the use of bio-based materials such as mycelium-composite for prototyping with digital fabrication.Using experts' reflections, we conducted a workshop about the environmental impact of prototyping with 22 design students. We reported their decisions on materials used for prototyping and their perception of using mycelium-composite within the Sustainable Prototyping Life Cycle. Our aim is to increase environmental awareness in prototyping and highlight the importance of designers' decision-making through the cycle.

Sustainability has been addressed in fashion, product design and furniture making fields. Recycling and disposing e-textiles has been a concern in this community for years[20]; however, the impact of designing sustainable wearables is still new territory that requires more exploration. This paper approaches sustainability in the prototyping process by producing wearables that make use of biodegradable material for embedding electronics. We have used mycelium, that unlike other biodegradable materials such as kombucha, algae, or bioplastics, has heat resistance, thermal resistance and hydrophobic properties which makes it suitable to apply in wearables. Moreover, this paper proposes a sustainable life cycle that uses biodegradable materials to embed electronics. For example, we embedded an electronic circuit into mycelium skin to make an accessory. After the accessory has been worn, the electronic components can be reused and the mycelium skin composted. Lastly, we present our method for growing mycelium, our design process using common techniques in embedding electronics, and Myco-accessories as applications to envision the possibilities of this material. This paper aims to contribute to prototyping wearables sustainably by intertwining biomaterials and electronics.

DOOR is an artwork that aims at exposing some of the social and political impact of artificial intelligence, computer vision, and automation. The project uses a commercially available computer vision system that predicts the interactor's ethnicity, and locks or unlocks itself depending on this prediction. The artwork showcases a possible use of computer vision making explicit the fact that every technological implantation crystallises a political worldview.

Beauty Technology is a wearable computing paradigm that uses the body's surface as an interactive platform by integrating technology into beauty products applied directly to one's skin, fingernails and hair. Hairware is a Beauty Technology Prototype that connects chemically metalized hair extensions to a microcontroller turning it into an input device for triggering different objects. Hairware acts as a capacitive touch sensor that detects touch variations on hair and uses machine learning algorithms in order to recognize user's intention. Normally, while someone touches her own hair, unconsciously she is bringing comfort to herself and at the same time is emitting a non-verbal message decodable by an observer. However, when she replays that touch on Hairware, she is not just emitting a message to an observer, because touching her hair would trigger an object, creating in this way, a concealed interface to different devices. Therefore, Hairware brings the opportunity to make conscious use of an unconscious auto-contact behavior. We present Hairware's hardware and software implementation.

Looking for wearables that are fashionable, smart and augment human interaction, we introduce the term Beauty Technology as an emergent field in Wearable Computing. It is an on-body computing approach that turns non-invasive, wireless and without power required electromagnetic devices into beauty products for interacting with different surfaces and devices. This paper describes the materials and the prototyping process used in the making of Beauty Tech Nails exemplifying its application in everyday beauty products.

Touch, sight, smell, hearing and taste - our senses link us to the outside world. Reflexes react to all stimuli arriving simultaneously to our sensory environment. But there are lapses in awareness of seemingly obvious stimuli to temporary losses of attention and lapses that we are not aware of in the form of reflexes. The main motivation of this research is to plug these lapses with the power of feedback loops in environments where human and wearable computers are intertwined and explore their application as tools for self-modification and sustainable change. This work proposes a combination of body worn objects and hidden technology to create compelling, aesthetic solutions that not only appeal to our senses, but which fuse seamlessly with our everyday lives. In order to exemplify this exploration, we created Blinklifier, a wearable device that senses our reflex of blinking through conductive makeup and metalized eyelashes, and amplifies it.

This paper describes a systemic approach to co-design of collaborative museums, using ethnography, co-creation workshops and fast prototyping, amongst other Social Science and Human Centered Design methods. Focused on the creation of immersive and collaborative museum experiences, it provides a rationale for involving carefully selected multidisciplinary teams and users in the entire design cycle, and presents a process that supports this task, from research to development, pointing its value and limitations. In order to bring the discussion into context and exemplify the use of a group of methods that can support collaborative design, it introduces the case of a Brazilian Planetarium and Science Museum.