How somaesthetic design can help you find a healthy balance between work and life
And how designers can create products for a healthier lifestyle.
Most of you are probably unfamiliar with the term somaesthetic design. I also discovered it very recently when I came across Designing with the Body: Somaesthetic Interaction Design by Kristina Höök. I decided to share some of my thoughts on the concept in this article because I think that somaesthetic interaction design can be truly worth exploring for current and future designers who want to create supportive technology that will help people shape and maintain healthy habits today and in the post-pandemic era.
Before I start explaining the concept of somaesthetics, I would like you to try a short exercise that will help you understand the impact of somaesthetic design on your body later on. Look around you and try to find a quiet place where you can sit back and focus on calming down your mind and body.🧘♀️
Sit comfortably, slowly (veeeery slowly) close your eyes, and try to focus only on your breath for 30 seconds. Now slowly place your palms on your thighs. Try to sense the tension in your muscles while you’re moving your hands. Now try to define what you feel when your palms are reaching your thighs. Do you notice any tension? Are your palms heavy or light? Are they cold or warm? Is the touch soft? Please try to focus on describing your feelings for at least 2 minutes.
Through this short exercise, I wanted you to see how your mind affects you and what it feels like when you gain control over your body. Maybe you noticed how your breathing pattern changed and your heart slowed down. Maybe you felt some tension in your muscles or that your body became more sensitive to touch. Maybe it even took you a while to adjust and return to reading this article.
So what is somaesthetics about?
Somaesthetics is about exploring the relationship between our body (soma) and sensory perception (aesthetics). Designing for soma is still a relatively new and undiscovered field that has great potential for expansion. Let’s just look at the world around us today and compare it to the world we used to know. People who used to work in offices had to adjust their entire lives to the new working conditions. Some of them love it (according to the recent surveys, 1 out of 4 people wants to work from home permanently), and some of them hate it because finding a healthy balance between work and life when you’re forced to work from home is undoubtedly challenging. That’s what makes it a good chance for designers to step in and suggest solutions that will support people in their daily lives and struggles.
You may say that there are plenty of wonderful mobile applications and gadgets that track your activity, count your steps, and measure your pulse. Though apart from counting, measuring, and sending notifications saying that you’ve taken 2000 steps fewer than last week, are there any interactive products that actually focus on your well-being, calm you down, and make you more resistant to stress and failures in the long run?
Case study #1: the Soma Mat and Breathing Light
In Designing with the Body, Kristina Höök guides us through the process of making an interesting set of two interactive prototypes: the Soma Mat and Breathing Light. Her concept was to use heat and light as a channel connecting our mind with body and encouraging us to focus solely on our sensory perception.
The Soma Mat is an interactive mat that provides feedback to different body parts in form of heat. During the meditation time, you can also hear a set of pre-recorded instructions on your mobile phone that help you focus on one particular aspect or part of your body.
The Breathing Light, on the other hand, is in fact a large lampshade that you can place over your head and chest to isolate yourself from the surroundings and focus solely on your breath while you’re lying on the ground. The intensity of light changes according to your breathing pattern and chest movement, which already sounds very relaxing.
Case study #2: Sway
Sway is a mobile application that is inspired by the Chinese tai chi practice, which is also often described as meditation in motion. It uses your phone as a movement tracker and an interactive meditation guide. It detects your slow, subtle movements and provides feedback that encourages you to practice whenever you need it. I think that this approach is very convincing because it actually promotes both relaxation and body movement.
Move, explore, ideate
Keep in mind that somaesthetic design involves analyzing YOUR emotional and physical responses to different stimuli such as sounds, colors, and light. Yes, this can be rather time-consuming and demanding because it’s about experimenting and learning about your own body first. This time, it’s not about your users’ feedback only because you probably wouldn’t be able to develop a decent product without testing it on yourself.
Though the reason making designing for soma worth exploring is that people often forget about the most powerful tools we all have — our bodies; and believe me, discovering your body’s strengths and limitations can be more enjoyable and rewarding than swiping your thumb and finding an end of an infinite scroll.
Bibliography
- Höök, Kristina. Designing with the Body: Somaesthetic Interaction Design. The MIT Press, 2018. Print.
- Ståhl, Anna & Jung, Heekyoung. (2018). Soma-Wearable Design: Integrating Somaesthetic Practice and Fashion Design for Somatic Wellbeing. ResearchGate, accessed 26 March 2021. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1aa4/e85e142008dedf9cc618cf841fa25b0ec4d1.pdf?_ga=2.235364485.568063412.1616758170-1112904427.1616758170
- Hardy, Chloe. 19 October 2017. Peng Cheng: The man behind the mindfulness app. Morzine Source Magazine, accessed 26 March 2021. https://www.morzinesourcemagazine.com/peng-cheng-the-man-behind-the-mindfulness-app/
