July 1st, 2024, Copenhagen

Towards Robot and Technologies that Touch Well – Shaping an Experience-driven Design Paradigm

 

Touch-based interaction design, especially the features of soft robotic based actuators has shown increasing potential to be applied to healthcare and domestic settings, especially in care and intimate interaction contexts. However, current haptic devices are still very limited in developing richer and more fine-grained haptic sensations for users. The key to unlock these potentials depends on whether the technology can touch well, i.e. whether the experiential quality or affordance matches the expectation for intended use cases. The workshop intends to gather insights from a cross-disciplinary community including (but not limited to): design, engineering, science, psychology, the healthcare professions, and art practitioners, and aims to discuss how to map the experiential qualities of touch in different contexts and the technical parameters to achieve these qualities, with useful tools and datasets.


Read our proposal to find out more of the motivations of this workshop, the cross-disciplinary challenges and the significance of this space.

Schedule

   9:15-9.30    Introduction

Brief introduction on the motivation of the workshop and the agenda of the day.


9.30-10.30  Getting to know each other

Short presentations (10min) from all workshop attendees.


10.30-11.00 Coffee 


11.00-11.15 Getting to know each other (continues)

Short presentations (10min) from all workshop attendees.


11.15-12.30 Interactive session

Hands-on, free interaction session with devices, systems, toolkits, methods and processes brought by participants. With a coffee break in between (10.45-11.00). Generating three main themes.


12.30-14.00 Lunch break


14.00-14.15 Generating three themes


14.15-14.45 Theme 1 (in break-out groups)


14.45-15.15 Theme 2 (in break-out groups)


15.15-15.30 Theme 2 (in break-out groups)


15.30-16.00 Coffee break


16.00-16.15 Theme 3 (continue)


16.15-17.00 Synthesis

Collating the outcomes from three discussion themes across groups. Synthesise the outcome to identify critical elements (epistemology, approaches, methods, process, tools, etc) to an experience-driven paradigm


17.00-17.15 Discussion on taking away and following-up activities


17.20             Closing

Organisers

Madeline Balaam is a professor in Interaction Design at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Madeline has worked at the intersection of HCI and intimate health for the last 10+ years. She is currently pursuing a research agenda exploring the intersection between touch, soma design and the intimate body. Madeline has previously led and contributed to workshops at ACM CHI and ACM DIS.

 

Caroline Yan Zheng is a Digital Futures postdoc fellow at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Being a designer and researchers, she crafts soft robotic touch that enable emotionally rich experience. She was an awardee of the MedTech SuperConnector programme in the UK for translating soft robotic haptic technology into healthcare applications and a co-investigator in the Cancer Research UK-funded project ‘Improving care through soft robotic tactile intervention – towards a smarter compassionate experience in cancer treatment (SOFTLI)’ (2019-2021).

 

Georgios Andrikopoulos is assistant professor in Mechatronics, specializing in the field of Robot Design. Georgios’ research pursuits are centered around the design, development, and control of autonomous robotic systems, with an emphasis on human-centered interdisciplinary applications. These applications include soft and compliant robots for safe interactions, exoskeletons designed to assist in human motion, as well as climbing robotic solutions, designed primarily for industrial inspection.

 

Naida Berthouze is a full professor in Affective Computing and Interaction at the Interaction Centre of the University College London (UCL). Her research focuses on designing technology that can sense the affective state of its users and use that information to tailor the interaction process. She has pioneered the field of Affective Computing, first investigating body movement and touch behaviour as means to recognize, measure and steer the quality of the user experience in full-body computer games, physical rehabilitation and textile design. She is a PI on various grants in the ared of affective touch such as the EPSRC Embodied Intelligence Programme Grant in Robotics and the EPSRC Textile Circularity Centre.


Mark Paterson is professor of Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. He conducts research on the history and science of bodily sensation, and technologies of the senses. He is author of books including The Senses of Touch: Haptics, Affects and Technologies (Routledge, 2007) and How We Became Sensorimotor: Movement, Measurement, Sensation (University of Minnesota Press, 2021). He is co-editor of a special issue of ACM Transactions in Human-Robot Interaction (2023), 'Designing the Robot Body: Critical Perspectives on Affective Embodied Interaction'. His current research is concerned with the role of embodiment in human-robot interactions. Website is http://sensory-motor.com/. 

 

Minna Nygren is a postdoctoral research fellow on HCI and HRI, based at UCLIC, University College London (UCL). She explores sensorimotor engagement and design in care (From Sensing to Collaboration-project, EPSRC), with a focus on touch. Minna’s PhD (title: "Landscapes of Affective Interaction: Young Children’s Enactive Engagement with Body Metaphors", 2023) was funded by the Wellcome Trust, and conducted in conjunction with Move2Learn-project. As part of this work, Minna designed and developed a digital interactive experience to explore young children’s social interaction and communication.

 

Yoav Luft is a doctoral student in mediated communications, KTH, Sweden. Former software engineer, he had worked on several software projects both in academia and industry that range from embedded systems, soft robotics, internet services, mobile and web applications and games to IT infrastructure. His doctoral research focuses on how computations can be made more accessible for designers and researchers in digital touch to explore, while reducing the overhead associated with programming.