This paper is a call to study how we attune differently to the care technologies (tech) we live with as a means to design them better. Care tech fiddles with our most intimate relations and vulnerabilities. People have different experiences, dreams, desires, and action potentials, and if they cannot attune to a care tech, the care tech will not work as intended or even cause pathogenic vulnerability. The first part of the paper develops this argument, while the second part analyses three design cases and sketches an approach of deeply situated design as a potential answer to the call.

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.

This paper offers first-steps guidance towards the development of a methodology that embodies theoretical proposals for a fourth-wave, 'entanglement' approach to HCI. We propose the removal of technologies and the documenting of their absence as a method. Removal disrupts habitual relationships with our everyday technologies, revealing otherwise hidden knowledges. Removal as a method exemplifies that "you don't know what you've got till it's gone". We apply removal to the case of menstrual cycle tracking in two ways: literally through two autoethnographies, and hypothetically through semi-structured interviews. We show how this method especially facilitates emotional, embodied and cultural knowledge of the lived experience of self-tracking and we unpack some opportunities, implications and limitations in its use. Finally, we present how this method might be adopted by others and propose cases in which removal as a method might be applicable to study of a wider range of technologies beyond self-tracking.

Existing self-tracking devices have been criticized for perpetuating a dualist, rather than phenomenological, understanding of the self as a separated mind and body. In this paper we answer calls for a phenomenological approach to the design of self-tracking devices. Ambient Cycle is a menstrual cycle tracking device that provides a continuous display of data in the home through coloured light. Through its design and long-term deployment, we found that a phenomenological approach facilitated; 1. the documentation of a diversity in subjective experiences of the enigmatic menstrual cycle; 2. the tracking of positive as well as negative aspects of the menstrual cycle, which challenges wider understandings of the body in society, and 3. novel uses of self-tracked data. We also expand on existing uses of phenomenological theories within HCI to include those that address interactions with the insides of our bodies.

As self-tracking practices continue to proliferate, there has been a call for a consideration of how the design of these devices influence the users experience of themselves and their bodies beyond utility, efficacy and accuracy. The research product Ovum was designed to facilitate a DIY, shared, domestic experience, rather than an expert-led, individual, clinical experience of fertility tracking. Ovum uses the method of saliva sampling to determine ovulation. This paper unpacks the findings from a three-month long deployment of Ovum with seven couples trying to conceive. Besides an evaluation of the device in terms of the three experiential qualities aimed for in the design process, we report on the consequences of executing a design deployment that resembles a clinical trial. We contribute our experience in order to develop an understanding of how designing for the body places interaction designers in novel and complex situations.

In this pictorial we present the form-giving process of a Hedonic Haptic player, a wearable device that plays vibrotactile patterns on the body. We depict how we explored the aesthetics of the vibrotactile design space, how we constructed a platform as body of a hedonic experience, and how we developed different vibrotactile compositions. These activities collectively show how combinations of experiencing form, composing form, and materializing form can contribute to the aesthetic form-giving practice in interaction design.

Embodied design ideation practices work with relationships between body, material and context to enliven design and research potential. Methods are often idiosyncratic and due to their physical nature not easily transferred. This presents challenges for designers wishing to develop and share techniques or contribute to research. We present a framework that enables designers to understand, describe and contextualise their embodied design ideation practices in ways that can be understood by peers, as well as those new to embodied ideation. Our framework developed over two conference workshops provides a frame for discussion of embodied design actions that leverage the power of estrangement. We apply our framework to eight embodied design ideation methods. Our contribution is thus twofold: (1) a framework to understand and leverage the power of estrangement in embodied design ideation, and (2) an inspirational catalogue demonstrating the diversity of ideas that embodied design ideation methods can foster.

Radio waves surround us but still they remain largely undetected by our senses. Unless we use specifically tuned hardware, such as FM radios, cell phones or WiFi modems, human beings cannot perceive wirelessly transmitted data. This paper presents FeltRadio, a portable and wireless technology that makes it possible to turn radio signals into visual and tactile stimuli as a form of sensorial augmentation. FeltRadio explores and makes us reflect upon what it would be like if we could sense, and feel, wireless traffic such as WiFi or Bluetooth. We present the technological design behind FeltRadio and the outcome of two exploratory studies with the technology focused on people's experience of being able to suddenly sense and make sense of wireless traffic. We discuss the possible qualities of this embodied experience of FeltRadio and point to future experiments with the technology.

In this paper we propose a basic form language for shape-changing forms that work independently of materials and contexts of use. This form language is meant to inform design practice and therefore it is essential that it is easily graspable and available. Instead of relying on post analyses and abstract concepts, the basic form language we propose has the potential to become a vernacular that is relevant for practitioners. We derive at the language through looking towards adjacent fields of architecture and industrial design as well as through our own practice. We qualify the relevancy of the language in three ways: through using it in practice both as generative for our designs, as means to communicate with external collaborators, and finally we demonstrate its analytical power through analyzing three shape-changing interfaces made by others.

With this studio-workshop we aim to explore and debate how disassembling computational things can yield a potential for design practices. We believe there are significant qualities to be found in extending the mundane 'taking things apart' into an elaborate practice of un-crafting. The studio workshop comprises a series of collaborative disassembly activities with the aim of beginning to identify the key qualities and issues at stake. We also hope to have a diverse crowd, whose interdisciplinary viewpoints will enable us to ground an un-crafting practice in a diverse set of contexts.

With this paper we propose bricolage as an interaction design practice. We make the case that bricolage promotes design qualities that are specifically tuned to tangible and material computing practices in that it is highly sensible towards the unstable physical world and proposes a non-hierarchical negotiation of forms. We further show how bricolage can aid design results with strong and rich cultural and material grounding. Finally, we argue how bricolage and mythical thinking can be proponents for new ways of thinking and using technology.

Ajna is a musical cabinet made from a rich composition of acoustic materials and designed to perform digitally composed music. In this paper, we aim to unpack the design as well as key aspects of the design process that lead up to this unique artwork. We base our analysis on interviews with its two creators as well as on observations of Ajna performing in different contexts. From the perspective of interaction design, we first analyse the process of its making through the negotiations between physical form, temporal from, and the interactive gestalts. Lastly, we place these negotiations in a larger picture of bricolage as a design approach. Based on this we then discuss the qualities of bricolage in interaction design.

With soft hardware we refer to electronic components, coatings, and shells built from materials that make them elastic, flexible, floppy and malleable. By introducing new material properties into electronic and computational contexts we expect to open new paths for designing interactive things. Building electronics with textile and other soft materials may easily degrade elements such as speed, power, and storage capacities; however, these constraints can be acceptable if not down right desirable in these new contexts. We see how sensors, actuators, computers and even battery cells made of soft materials enables us to embed them into soft shapes that in turn afford certain forms of interaction. With the term soft hardware, we also highlight the interplay between computational and physical materials in interaction designs.

Computational composite is introduced as a new type of composite material. Arguing that this is not just a metaphorical maneuver, we provide an analysis of computational technology as material in design, which shows how computers share important characteristics with other materials used in design and architecture. We argue that the notion of computational composites provides a precise understanding of the computer as material, and of how computations need to be combined with other materials to come to expression as material. Besides working as an analysis of computers from a designer's point of view, the notion of computational composites may also provide a link for computer science and human-computer interaction to an increasingly rapid development and use of new materials in design and architecture.