Hey, all fellow scholars; I have a brief announcement: I am part of this excellent research paper: Towards understanding the design of playful bodily extension via body schema and body image.
It introduces a diagrammatic design framework and explains how playful bodily extensions affect the internal body schematic states (body schema) and the external perceptual understanding of oneself in conjunction with the physical and social environment (body image).
Abstract:
Interaction designers are increasingly interested in physically extending people’s bodies. Emerging work shows the potential of such bodily extensions for play, one example being interactive fantasy ears for the Cosplay community. We interviewed five designers of four playful bodily extensions to understand better how to design them. Based on their insights and our examination of prior work, we argue that such extensions can be characterized by how they alter the wearer’s body schema and body image. We illustrate this characterization using a two-dimensional design space. We use this design space to articulate practical strategies for the design of future playful bodily extensions. Ultimately, we hope to bring more playful experiences to people’s lives.
While I mainly contributed to the paper’s theoretical (phenomenological) and analytical parts, I also substantially contributed to conceptualising the overall scope of the paper, data collection, and interviews with the experts.
Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller, Oguz ‘Oz’ Buruk, Louise Petersen Matjeka, Aryan Saini. 2025. Towards understanding the design of playful bodily extensions via body schema and body image. In International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Elsevier. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2025.103457