Motorbike commuting is the new frontier for exploring digital technology where designing for embodied interaction takes on a more central role. In this paper, building on previous work on embodied self-monitoring, we present our ongoing work of designing a modular platform with a particular focus on real-time estimation and presentation of posture data while riding. In particular, we present "Bike Area Network' (BANk) as a system architecture to help guide the design of such a platform. We share our ongoing work as an invitation for the community of researchers and practitioners of designing for embodied interaction to further explore this new frontier of research.

A flexible wooden device, "Trækvejret" which emulates a slow rate of breathing is placed in a coffee break room. This work examines related works on reflection, triggering reflection, and breathing and biofeedback technologies. We demonstrate how simple technology such as Trækvejret, which does not measure or give feedback about a user's breathing can nonetheless potentially be useful and provoking, encouraging reflection and potentially, behaviour change.

In this article we focus on how rehabilitees make use of personal data as part of performing their prescribed physical therapy in out-of-clinic settings (e.g., home). Over the past 5 years we have been extensively involved in the design of pervasive and mobile technologies to support out-of-clinic physical rehabilitation. Two strands guide our work: situated and embodied interaction, and the practice and theory of physical rehabilitation. In particular we draw upon the latter’s practice of integrating therapy with the lived everyday settings and the model of Person–Environment–Occupation. We revisit this work from the emerging perspective of lived informatics to bring forward multiple instances of rehabilitees using personal rehabilitation data to make sense of their physical rehabilitation process. We present these instances under four categories: becoming your own standard of reference; marking your life as a rehabilitee; articulating with therapists, partners, and peers; and incorporating exercising with everyday activities. We put forward the Person–Environment–Occupation model as a generative entry point for designing digital technology in support of lived informatics in out-of-clinic physical rehabilitation. Through this article we invite researchers in the field of lived informatics to engage in the design of digital technologies for out-of-clinic physical rehabilitation.

Recently there have been concerns to investigate the general issues of design within the field of designing pervasive rehabilitation technology. In this paper we take these concerns as points-of-departure to explore the possible roles that digital technology can be designed to take, for supporting the integration of physiotherapy with the everyday life of the rehabilitees. Informed by the perspective of embodied interaction we engaged in four design explorations that were driven by a process of sketching-in-hardware. We take advantage of the rich social, material and physical everyday practices of the rehabilitees in these situations to design four interactive sketches. We reflect on the sketches and the explorations and synthesize our experiences in the form of an emerging space of possibilities. We position these possibilities as particular directions that future endeavors can take in order to design rehabilitation technology that supports an integration of physiotherapy with the everyday life.

Recent works that aim to design for enhancing the physical fitness and/or social lives of senior citizens take limited advantage of the synergistic relationship between exercising and socializing, which is prominently observed during group exercise. In this paper we introduce our design of Social Yoga Mats, which aim to extend this synergy from weekly yoga classes into the home.

In this paper we highlight our realization of the entangled role played by the aspects of self-monitoring and collaborative articulation in facilitating a successful rehabilitation process. We describe the process of sketching-driven-co-exploration with therapists and senior citizens leading to our ongoing work in MyReDiary: a personal device for the senior citizens. While supporting self-monitoring of the rehab process for the senior citizens, it simultaneously acts as a tool for collaboration. Importantly, it aims to provide a language for the senior citizens to discuss their experiences from home.

In this paper we present our ongoing exploration of a theoretical concept: Embodied Microblogging. Looking for a more situated way to communicate mundane activities in local communities, EM informs the design of digital technology to facilitate senior citizens in making their everyday activities noticeable and create more openings for social interactions in their local communities. We use Walky, a design sketch based on walking and walking objects, to exemplify the design space emerging from EM. Investigating EM and putting on display a concrete design example, we contribute to the interaction design research community looking at social well being in Aging in place suggesting EM as informing theoretical concept for designing digital technology for social interaction.

We discuss the design ideal of explicit interaction, which is a way to approach the dimensions of explicitness versus ambience and explicitness versus obtrusiveness in ubiquitous computing. Explicit interaction refers to interaction techniques designed to make actions and intentions visible, understandable and accountable. We introduce three levels of analysis---usability, materialization, and social performance---and present the design of an explicit interaction assembly of devices for rehabilitation after hand surgery. The assembly, intended to support video recording during patient-therapist consultations, is evaluated and we find that it provides superior usability and the potential to improve rehabilitation outcomes through materialization. Moreover, we find that the design of cues to support the social practice in the rehabilitation ward needs to be improved since the assembly allowed for uses unanticipated during the design.

In this paper we report our early experience with the design of technology for senior citizens. We take as our point of departure a pre-study of the ways in which older adult living occurs at three different senior housing facilities in southern Sweden. We contribute to the current debate concerning the ways in which digital technology can be designed to enable new types of living arrangements for the ever growing population of older people. We focus on technology designed to support the social rather than physical challenges of growing older. In particular we discuss how designing for social interaction can circumvent the stigma associated with being lonely in light of diminishing social networks, changed patterns of interactions with family, moving to a new neighbourhood, and the loss of a spouse. We will suggest that designers, in the design of digital technology for social interaction, deliberately leave room for ambiguity to make it possible for people to leave their intentions of use unarticulated. Furthermore, recognizing that many everyday activities already act as enablers for social interaction, we suggest utilizing such activities as an approach for design. We will support our suggestions by introducing three perspectives: a perspective emphasizing that the population of older adults is one of resourceful individuals; a perspective on social interaction emphasizing its circumstantial nature as an inherent part of everyday activities; and a perspective on the role of digital technology emphasizing its role as merely one of many resources present for human action. Finally, we will present an example concept showing how an enhanced TV remote control may be designed to enable social interactions without inflicting too much on the original experience of watching TV and most importantly, without stigmatizing the people using the remote control as lonely individuals craving the company of others.

Quiet Calls is a technology allowing mobile telephone users to respond to telephone conversations without talking aloud. QC-Hold, a Quiet Calls prototype, combines three buttons for responding to calls with a PDA/mobile phone unit to silently send pre-recorded audio directly into the phone. This permits a mixed-mode communication where callers in public settings use a quiet means of communication, and other callers experience a voice telephone call. An evaluation of QC-Hold shows that it is easily used and suggests ways in which Quiet Calls offers a new form of communication, extending the choices offered by synchronous phone calling and asynchronous voicemail.

The AROMA project is exploring the kind of awareness that people effortless are able to maintain about other beings who are located physically close.We are designing technology that attempts to mediate a similar kind of awareness among people who are geographically dispersed but want to stay better in touch.AROMA technology can be thought of as a stand-alone communication device or -more likely --an augmentation of existing technologies such as the telephone or full-blown media spaces.Our approach differs from other recent designs for awareness (a) by choosing pure abstract representations on the display site, (b) by possibly remapping the signal across media between capture and display, and, finally, (c) by explicitly extending the application domain to include more than the working life, to embrace social interaction in general.We are building a series of prototypes to learn if abstract representation of activity data does indeed convey a sense of remote presence and does so in a sutTiciently subdued manner to allow the user to concentrate on his or her main activity.We have done some initial testing of the technical feasibility of our designs.What still remains is an extensive effort of designing a symbolic language of remote presence, done in parallel with studies of how people will connect and communicate through such a language as they live with the AROMA system.