Human movement has historically been approached as a functional component of interaction within human computer interaction. Yet movement is not only functional, it is also highly expressive. In our research, we explore how movement expertise as articulated in Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) can contribute to the design of computational models of movement's expressive qualities as defined in the framework of Laban Efforts. We include experts in LMA in our design process, in order to select a set of suitable multimodal sensors as well as to compute features that closely correlate to the definitions of Efforts in LMA. Evaluation of our model shows that multimodal data combining positional, dynamic and physiological information allows for a better characterization of Laban Efforts. We conclude with implications for design that illustrate how our methodology and our approach to multimodal capture and recognition of Effort qualities can be integrated to design interactive applications.

In this paper, we investigate the value and challenges of observing movement experience in embodied design. We interviewed three design researchers selected from a CHI2014 panel on designing for the experiential body. For each designer, we analyzed a publication describing their process of observing movement experience. By analyzing the interviews and publications, we studied how these researchers observe movement and how they articulate it in their design process. From our study, we contribute a set of techniques for performing movement observation inspired by somatics and body-based practices which we define as: attunement, attention, and kinesthetic empathy. We illustrate how these techniques have been applied by the selected researchers, and also highlight the remaining challenges related to articulating, translating, and sharing the felt movement experience in the context of design within HCI. Finally, we address these challenges by arguing for further exploration of movement frameworks from the fields of somatics, body-based practices, and movement studies as specific strategies that can be applied to HCI.