Developing fine motor skills requires complex coordination between physical and mental processes, which can be challenging for novices as they manage multiple sensory inputs while executing precise movements. To address this, we developed a proof-of-concept hybrid wearable system that guides mindful breathing through different combinations of AR feedback and air-induced haptic cues. Fifteen participants took part in a mixed-method exploratory study involving paper-based precision tasks inspired by welding. The outcomes indicate that the breathing guide with haptic cues can positively influence task performance and highlight a connection among improved performance, enhanced body awareness, and attention regulation with mindfulness exercises. While initial findings are promising, larger validation studies are needed. This study examines the potential for integrating mindfulness into fine motor skill development through multimodal interaction, suggesting applicability in welding and other skills as a complement to traditional training.

Reflecting on a one-year design-research project, we examine design drifts by documenting and analyzing three distinct conceptual and technical shifts that took place. We extend the notion of drifting by framing through stages of unmaking and remaking —where unmaking involves reversals of progress and remaking incorporates these reversals into new research framings. While remaking has been discussed as emergence and reframing, we argue that unmaking during design research is often hidden yet equally significant. This pictorial presents a visual reflection on our artifact's development. We also characterize how a drift may form as a six-step process. We emphasize unmaking's contribution to drifting: it embodies reflection-in-action with materials and helps generate designerly knowledge for future research.

Alternative Research Outcomes (AROs) go beyond traditional academic publications, taking diverse forms such as documentaries, DIY tutorials, or exhibitions. With growing recognition of the need for more inclusive and contextually appropriate research dissemination, AROs are particularly relevant in HCI and design research. Yet, little has been discussed on why it is important to work on AROs. What are key qualities of AROs? How can the HCI community benefit from learning more about creating AROs? By analyzing six case studies, we propose four qualities of AROs and demonstrate how they emerge in the timeline of a research project. We argue AROs can be adapted to diverse audience needs and share research insights that may extend beyond the original research goals. Our work contributes to a deeper understanding of how AROs can support inclusive research dissemination practices, enabling HCI researchers to engage broader audiences and extend the relevance of their work.

Metal welding is a craft manufacturing skill that can be unusually difficult to externalize and represent to novices. Building competency requires an apprentice to iteratively practice embodied skills and sensitize themselves to a sensorially complex practice. To explore these challenges, we organized a series of co-design workshops with a youth program in welding and fabrication. Working with eight instructors and four students, we identified opportunities for mixed reality, sensing, and tinyML processes to augment welding training and practice. This resulted in an extended reality (XR) welding helmet and torch that enhances the embodied learning of welding in three key ways: biometric sensing enhances mindfulness and stress management in sensorially challenging environments; acoustic sensing focuses learner attention on non-visual cues of weld performance; and combined motion-sensing and visual XR feedback helps improve proprioceptive and embodied learning. These features are assessed and we offer design implications for augmenting novice learning of craft-practice with XR approaches.

We present a novel design for materials that are reconfigurable by end-users. Conceptually, we propose decomposing such reconfigurable materials into (1) a generic, complex material consisting of engineered microstructures (known as metamaterials) designed to be purchased and (2) a simple configuration geometry that can be fabricated by end-users to fit their individual use cases. Specifically, in this paper we investigate reconfiguring our material’s elasticity, such that it can cover existing objects and thereby augment their material properties. Users can configure their materials by generating the configuration geometry using our interactive editor, 3D printing it using commonly available filaments (e. g., PLA), and pressing it onto the generic material for local coupling. We characterize the mechanical properties of our reconfigurable elastic metamaterial and showcase the material’s applicability as, e.g., augmentation for haptic props in virtual reality, a reconfigurable shoe sole for different activities, or a battleship-like ball game.