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Workshop Presentation of a Social Wearable That
Affords Vulnerability
Ella Dagan
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA, USA
ella@ucsc.edu
Ferran Altarriba Bertran
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA, USA
faltarri@ucsc.edu
Elena Márquez Segura
Department of Informatics and Media,
Uppsala University
Uppsala, Sweden
elena.marquez@ucsc.edu
Miguel Flores
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA, USA
mflore048@gmail.com
Katherine Isbister
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA, USA
katherine.isbister@ucsc.edu
ABSTRACT
We present ’True Colors,’ a social wearable prototype designed to augment co-located social interaction among players in a LARP (live action role play). We designed it to enable
the emergence of rich social dynamics between wearers and
non-wearers. True Colors is Y-shaped, worn around the upper body, and has distinct front and back interfaces to afford
actions taken by the wearer (front), and actions taken by others (back). To design True Colors [3], we followed a Researchthrough-Design approach, used experiential qualities and
social affordances to guide our process, and co-designed with
LARP designers. 13 True Colors wearables were deployed in
a 3-day LARP event, attended by 109 people. Out of all the
functionalities and interactivity the device afforded, players
gravitated most towards those that emphasized the social
value of experiencing vulnerability as a prompt to get together.
CCS CONCEPTS
• Human-centered computing→HCI theory, concepts
and models.
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UbiComp/ISWC ’19 Adjunct, September 9–13, 2019, London, United Kingdom
© 2019 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed
to ACM.
ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-6869-8/19/09. . . $15.00
https://doi.org/10.1145/3341162.3345614
KEYWORDS
Social wearables; wearables; vulnerability; RtD; LARP; embodied interaction; social touch.
ACM Reference Format:
Ella Dagan, Ferran Altarriba Bertran, Elena Márquez Segura, Miguel
Flores, and Katherine Isbister. 2019. Workshop Presentation of a
Social Wearable That Affords Vulnerability. In Adjunct Proceedings
of the 2019 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and
Ubiquitous Computing and the 2019 International Symposium on
Wearable Computers (UbiComp/ISWC ’19 Adjunct), September 9–13,
2019, London, United Kingdom. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2 pages.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3341162.3345614
1 TRUE COLORS
True Colors is a social wearable, i.e. a wearable that augments co-located social interaction [8]. The main goal in this
project was to design a device that enhanced social interaction and enabled the emergence of rich social dynamics
between wearers and non-wearers. To support these goals,
the front interface was designed to empower the wearer to
initiate action, while the back was designed for others to use.
We were inspired by prior work on technology co-creation
with expert design communities [6, 8]. LARP (live action
role play) designers are experts in designing narrative and
environments that support rich social experience for their
players by utilizing technological and non-technological objects [9, 11]. We created True Colors by using a Researchthrough-Design (RtD) approach [4, 13, 14] and co-creation
[10] with Event Horizon (EH)’s LARP designers of the New
Gyr LARP [5]. We intend to bring one of the prototypes to
the workshop to discuss its features in Beyond Individuals:
Exploring Social Experience Around Wearables.
Traditionally, the focus in HCI tends to be more on reducing human vulnerabilities. We find "technological fixes"
(Winberg cited by [7]) with the aim of resolving vulnerability issues, attempting to make us feel safe, strong and
protected. The experience of vulnerability in everyday life
461
UbiComp/ISWC ’19 Adjunct, September 9–13, 2019, London, United Kingdom Dagan, et al.
Figure 1: Illustration of functionalities.©Ella Dagan.
Figure 2: Left and Right: Non-wearer players interact with
the back interface of wearers. Center: Device showing ingame immunity mode. ©Event Horizon.
may be perceived as unpleasant or unwanted, yet research
suggests it serves an important function as "the core, the
heart, the center, of meaningful human experiences"; a key
for wholehearted living among others [1]. True Colors was
tested primarily in the field, and provided very promising
results regarding its potential to enhance co-located social
interaction among players, in particular how players were
embracing vulnerability through the use of the wearables
[3]. This work extends previous work on wearable technology in LARPs [2, 8, 12], including supporting emotional
resonance, social signaling, and spectator sensitivity (e.g. of
moments of weakness) affordances [8]; supporting authentic
self-presentation and choice; and supporting overcoming
difficulties together (e.g. through social touch). See video
demonstration here: https://tinyurl.com/y6xbw8l3.
2 LIVED EXPERIENCE OF TRUE COLORS
True Colors affords a variety of social interactions, ranging
from friendly to more confrontational. During the LARP,
participants could choose which features to use and how.
From a thematic analysis of the collected data, a few design themes other than vulnerability emerged: (i) players
considered the wearable to be ’interactable’–it was easy for
them to interact with, it felt like a ’real’ interface to them,
and it also supported their interaction with one another; (ii)
the wearable supported role play of identity affiliation, it was
easy to tell who was an ’Augment’ because they all wore the
devices, making them stand out as ’others’ and telegraphing
their group affiliation and social status; (iii) the wearable
enhanced scene building by making scenes more interesting,
and players used it to create scenes and improvise around
its interactive features; and finally (v) uncontrollable timing,
the wearable has a prominent feature triggered based on a
timer which created a lot of interesting moments for players. Players referred to this as serendipitous timing that was
perfect for the scene/players (but not necessarily for their
characters). (For more detail about these findings, see [3].)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Event Horizon team, all of New Gyr’s participants
and those who helped produce copies of the design.
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