As DIS researchers increasingly describe design as an emergent and material engaged practice, many are embracing different approaches to design documentation that capture the breadth of these practices. This pictorial contributes to these efforts by shedding light on a kind of managerial work that emerged when creating a complex e-textile installation. Specifically, we reflect on our project through the lens of “design bookkeeping” to describe documents that embody managerial knowledge and describe what these documents make intelligible about our practice. We surface findings and cross-cutting themes that bring attention to these practices in relation to broader understandings of project documentation. We then speculate on how the DIS community could circulate this knowledge within, and beyond, academic publication venues.

After the successful organization of the first TEI Swatch Exchange as part of the SDC (Student Design Challenge) in 2021, we would like to propose Swatches as a new and physical publication format to TEI, the Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction. We believe TEI should take initiative in exploring possibilities of broadening how academic publishing can look like, and what novel publication formats could be inclusive towards new knowledges and new participants in order to advance academic practice. The focus and nature of the work presented at TEI is uniquely fitted to explore physical publication formats as a novel way to advance, communicate, and cite work that embeds and embodies computing in the physical world. However, we are aware that a physical publication format also poses very specific challenges, including questions of dissemination, accessibility, and citation, to name a few. We propose a Studio to deeply engage with the possibilities and potentials, as well as potential problems of physical publications. We see such discussion as a crucial first step in defining plausible submission processes, publication forms, and means of archiving of new academic formats.

‘Crafting Stories’ investigates the potentials of smart and electronic textile craftsmanship in the context of interactive books. A handmade interactive eTextile book, copying a handmade interactive textile book my late grandmother made, is presented as a prototypical artefact. The presentation of this practice-based research at the intersection of textile crafts, electronic and computational technology, and storytelling explicitly focuses on the interactive qualities, materials used, and the story experience. It introduces and contextualizes ‘The Book My Grandmother Might Have Made’, annotates design decisions, and pictures the making of the book. I report on early explorations of users interacting with the crafted stories and close with discussing the possibilities and perspectives of crafting tangible, embedded, and embodied interactions within (eTextile) books.

Tools, as extensions of hand and mind, prescribe defining properties for a practice. We anchor our tools research within a case study of electronic textiles (eTextiles), combining textile materials and electronic and computational functionality. While the field of eTextiles is expanding into new personal and ubiquitous applications, its tools as productive means, however, are rarely investigated. We fill this gap by both proposing and exploring new tools, aiming at an integrated eTextile craft practice across disciplinary boundaries. Results from a research through design process have been developed into research products and proposed to a wider community of novices and practitioners. Research insights from making, using and reflecting on our new tools show they not only guide habits of making, but also are formative to the understanding of eTextiles as a practice and a field. Their form and function matter for the skills, processes and users, ultimately prescribing the technologies that surround us.

Participatory design (PD) with heterogeneous groups poses particular challenges, requiring spaces in which different agendas or visions can be negotiated. In this paper we report on our PD work with two groups of neurodiverse children to design technologies that support co-located, social play. The heterogeneity in the groups in terms of abilities, conceptions of play, motivations to be involved and individual preferences has challenged us to think of the design process and its outcomes as spaces for continuous negotiation. Drawing on the notion of agonistic PD, we sought not to necessarily reconcile all views, but foster constructive disagreement as a resource for and possible outcome of design. Using our project work as a case study, we report on controversies, big and small, and how they manifested themselves in the processes and outcomes. Reflecting on our experiences, we discuss possible implications on the notion of democratising technology innovation.

Electronic textiles, or eTextiles, and connected research and practice communities grew within and across diverse disciplines over the past 20 years. Initially evolving from academic investigations, eTextiles now play a growing role in both industry and education alike. While we are increasingly confronted with resulting eTextile artefacts, we lack a thorough understanding of the underlying making practices, and in particular what role toolkits play in framing, promoting and supporting creation practices. It is timely then to undertake a review of currently available eTextile tools and kits, discussing the technical, cultural and social expectations inscribed in these settings and how their design and technology impacts the emerging field of eTextiles. Here we compile the first overview of both academic research and popular available toolkits, as a basis for an analysis of potential strategies for future directions: how to diversify and professionalise the field and its community of practice.

We introduce and discuss the design and use of new tools for electronic textile making. Electronic textiles, or eTextiles, are increasingly produced and used in experimental interfaces, wearables, interior design, as well as in the education and maker cultures. However, the field relies on tools specific to either the textile or the electronic domain, neglecting the distinct requirements, and potentials, of their intersection. To address this gap, we explored the design of new tools, targeted at specific needs and use cases of electronic textile making and the materials used. Three resulting prototypes have been evaluated through use in both our own practice and among a group of experts in the field. Our findings show the importance of specialized tools for routines essential to the field eTextiles, their role for the emergence of new practices, as well as for the understanding of the discipline.

We introduce e-accessories using established web aesthetics to transfer online interactions into the physical world and vice versa. Drawing on visual impressions and interaction metaphors of web 2.0 applications we propose two scenarios to include relevant functions into the physical space and allow real world actions to directly interact with the personal online presence.

This paper introduces an approach to include a fab lab into an interactive exhibition space of a museum. Fab labs, as coined by Neil Gershenfeld, have established a great point of view for educational access to modern means of invention and technological empowerment. However realizations so far have been mainly focused on technical equipment and peer- to-peer project based training.