As wearable technologies are becoming an increasingly popular tool for data collection, smart clothing and accessories have also started to be adorned with different output modalities, e.g. screens, lights, scents, thermal, vibrotactile, and shape-changing. With these output features, wearable technologies are capable of conveying information or meaning and reacting to various data from sensors placed on the body, or the surrounding environment. However, designing wearable displays is still a complex task since wearable technologies, in contrast to other interactive objects share the same design space with traditional clothes and accessories. Their design should also consider wearables’ social and cultural roles, e.g., in expressing style and/or appropriateness for a context.

This one-day workshop gathers together researchers, designers, and practitioners that are working with wearable design and aims to provide a venue to discuss specific challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned around designing different on-body output modalities in various contexts of use. What sorts of criteria do we have while designing a wearable with a certain modality? How do we shape the modalities in order to communicate meanings/information on the body? How do cultural and social challenges influence the design of different modalities?

The workshop will be conducted online. More information about the details will be announced later. This is aligned with the message of the chairs communicated in the notification about NordiCHI 2020 going online:

“It is with profound sadness that we let you know that NordiCHI 2020 will take place online. This decision was made by NordiCHI’s steering committee taking under consideration the current circumstances. Determinant factors were the volatility of flight schedules and the self-isolation periods imposed upon travellers by many states.”