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In Harmony: Making a Wearable Musical Instrument as a Case Study of using Boundary Objects in an Interdisciplinary Collaborative Design Process

Published: 10 June 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Working on a wearable technology interdisciplinary project team can be challenging because of a lack of shared understanding between different fields, and a lack of ability in cross-disciplinary communication. We describe an interdisciplinary collaborative design process used for creating a wearable musical instrument with a musician. Our diverse team used drawing and example artifacts/toolkits to overcome communication and gaps in knowledge. We view this process in the frame of Susan Leigh Star's description of a boundary object, and against a similar process used in another musical / computer science collaboration with the group Duran Duran.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    DIS '17: Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
    June 2017
    1444 pages
    ISBN:9781450349222
    DOI:10.1145/3064663
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    Published: 10 June 2017

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    Author Tags

    1. boundary objects
    2. design process
    3. e-textile interface
    4. musical garment

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    June 10 - 14, 2017
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    DIS '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 107 of 487 submissions, 22%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 1,158 of 4,684 submissions, 25%

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    • (2022)Integrating Interactive Technology Concepts With Material Expertise in Textile Design DisciplinesProceedings of the 2022 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3532106.3533535(1277-1287)Online publication date: 13-Jun-2022
    • (2022)Non-designers in Interdisciplinary Design: Facilitating Communication and Ideation Using Boundary Objects[ ] With Design: Reinventing Design Modes10.1007/978-981-19-4472-7_3(31-51)Online publication date: 6-Nov-2022
    • (2021)sssnake: a remote multiplayer toy for childrenProceedings of the 20th Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference10.1145/3459990.3465204(563-567)Online publication date: 24-Jun-2021
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    • (2019)A Wearable Nebula Material Investigations of Implicit InteractionProceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction10.1145/3294109.3295623(625-633)Online publication date: 17-Mar-2019
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