When we develop new practices, artefacts and interaction designs for sports and physical activity, it is essential to involve movement in the design process. Involving movement, we believe, will lead to more sustainable movement technologies and sports concepts so that, in turn, people in Europe gain health and well-being. We will, therefore, build an interdisciplinary network across Europe to develop so-called “design method cards” that include movement in the design process of sport, movement and technology. Movement can be the target domain for artefacts (e.g. the variety of interaction design for sports, health, and embodied play with or without technology). Movement can also be the medium of design (the body as a source of creativity, e.g. bodystorming, embodied sketching, etc.). To do ground-breaking design work on this interdisciplinary domain of movement and technology, we require professionals with enough knowledge and skills in the domains of design, sports & movement, and technology, which is challenging to achieve given the breadth of the combined fields. To fully leverage the potential of the combined design fields, and design processes in a broader sense; we need to develop an accessible and well-rounded toolbox of embodied design methods for students and design professionals. An effective way of making design and research methods accessible for students and professionals are "Method card boxes" offered as web-services. The cards provide a user-friendly approach to guide design activities. The cards contain a brief description of the goal, procedure, use contexts, and constraints of each method. However, “movement-based method cards” in the existing toolboxes are still at their infancy. This project aims to develop movement-based methods cards and a supporting framework for the content and use of movement-based methods. In the Method Cards for Movement-based Interaction Design (MeCaMInD) project, we explore how we can make a navigable and actionable method card toolbox in the fields of interaction design and sport & movement. We will also focus on disseminating the insights of the toolbox to students and design professionals across disciplines. The outcome also involves an understanding of how to create and enhance a movement-based creative design environment. The MeCaMInD consortium consists of six partners from the domains of sport and movement sciences and interaction design. Accomplishing the development of the method card box and the testing and validation in teaching and research projects using the cards, we have planned seven Transnational Project Meetings (TPMs), and six Multiplier Events (MEs). The MEs are organised with associate partners and stakeholders to co-develop, test, familiarize with, and refine the methods and the toolbox. The TPMs are organised around a kickoff, preparing IOs and MEs, an internal midterm review, refinement and evaluation seminar, and finally a closing meeting. These transnational activities serve to manage, inspire and develop a shared understanding of the content and approaches for the intellectual outputs (IOs), which includes written reports, research papers, method cards, and a website for disseminating movement-based method cards and guidelines. Intellectual Outputs (IOs) in the project involve a literature review of state-of-the-art mapping of movement-based methods; report on the difficulties using embodied methods in design practice; forming of a creative environment and productive body(mind) setting and collection of methods and theories behind the methods; report on various bodystorming and movement sketching methods and principles of creativity; use cases applying the methods with professionals in the sport & health domain; a reflection of guidelines and best practices in using the methods in teaching and using methods in the sports industry. The methods and guidelines will be disseminated through the production of video, pictures and graphics to support the text descriptions. Organising the methods and tieing them into the principles of embodied design, a toolbox framework and route maps will be developed and integrated. The MeCaMInD project will support solving the challenge of engineers and students to engage with movement in their design practice (as target domain and as the medium of design) and for human movement students to gain confidence in using movement as their first choice in doing technology design. The confidence in using the methods will make the students ambassadors and role models for a movement centred approach designing for well-being and a healthy lifestyle of people in Europe. Further, MeCaMInD brings together design methods in a way that opens up a larger design space for the development of novel products and movement practices. As all interactions are embodied, it will have a potential long-term impact on society beyond the fields of interaction design and sports & movement.
A way of making design and research methods accessible for students and professionals is "Method card boxes", which provide a user-friendly approach to guide design activities. Research on movement-based methods is challenging to comprehend, and movement-based method cards in existing toolboxes are in their infancy. Due to this, design professionals and students rarely utilize movement as an active component or are unaware of movement as a valuable design resource. Based on these challenges, the MeCaMInD project had two main objectives: - First, we aimed to research theoretical foundations for a new movement-centric interaction design paradigm, building on movement improvisation and with movement at the centre of design processes. - Second, we aimed to create a navigable and actionable resource and roadmap of movement methods. This operationalized through the development of a method card toolbox and an interactive online platform with the gathered and developed movement-based method cards with instructional videos and guidelines. The objective was further to test the use of the toolbox in the sports industry and the curricula of the project partners in various disciplines, forming guidelines for using the toolbox.
A crucial factor that negatively affects a person’s vitality is a lack of physical activity and a sedentary lifestyle. Sport and movement provide fun and well-being and is one of the best preventive medicines, often mediated through technology and digital artefacts. With this focus, we targeted three concurrent developments in sports and interaction design: - Sport and movement continually innovate by designing new artefacts, practices, and novel forms of sport and movement. Three perspectives arise in this development: Design for movement (to facilitate movement), design with movement (the body as a creative resource) and design of movement (movement improvisation). - Interaction technology is increasingly being designed to support exercise, provide feedback, and enable the creation of new sports and movement practices, often in a mix of technological elements. - The role of body movement as a source of creativity has been explored, pointing at methods and outcomes and the importance of facilitating the right mindset and acting through activities and environmental stimuli. Especially the last element, we discovered, needed to be further made accessible.