Abstract
In the last decades there is an increasing interest in human body and technology relation, in which both artifacts function as a holistic entity in order to enhance the natural borders pushing them further to widen the abilities of human beings. Although few decades ago the future’s human being was pictured as a cyborg, which is a mix of flesh and robot that improves the natural function of organs by taking part of the body system; today with the improvements in nanotechnology, micro-electronics, e-textiles, wearables and furthermore the involvement of designers into this multi-disciplinary research with a human-centered approach the image of “super-human” has changed into a more inherent organism that has supernormal skills. Without making a radical change on the human silhouette, technology can be placed on the body and in the system, where the body plays a part, imperceptibly in order to create healthier, happier and more connected society. Embodied interfaces, in which the technology is seamlessly integrated into the physical world, allow human body to interact with digital data through using bodily abilities such as expressive gestures and fine-motor skills. These interfaces create a more engaging interaction, where the human body is the central point. Smart textiles and their wearable applications are one of these embodied interfaces, where the technology has a soft appearance that can be easily placed on the body. Smart textiles have various capabilities that allow designers to create intelligent artifacts functioning comprehensibly as extensions of human body and its senses. While some smart textiles can sense bodily and environmental data, some of them can respond to these data through changing their states. They can act both as sensors and displays. Through wearing these embodied interfaces human body itself can become the interface, in which it is impossible to define where the boundary of the self ends and the others start. This paper focuses on various human-centered design case studies, where smart textiles are used as embodied interfaces in order to enhance human wellbeing in three different modalities: physically, psychologically and socially. Through giving examples of applied researches, this paper tries to underline the role of technology as a seamless mediator in order to create innovative solutions that involve human body as the main actor of interaction. Besides the case studies, the paper represents a design concept with a user-scenario, where smart textiles are applied in a system to assist people with special needs.