Designing for Wearables

Foreword

WEARABLES IS A BROAD STROKE. A word that encompasses so many different things and contains a lot of underlying meaning and history. On the one hand, it implies a technology that we can wear—one that is close to the body, intimate, and personal. On the other hand, the things we wear can also be fashion, something that we use to express an outward appearance, convey personality, belonging, allegiances, and our existence in a specific place and time. As Scott so astutely explores in this book, when at their best, wearable tech encompasses both of these things and more. At their worst, they do neither and are a fleeting novelty.

We’ve been wearing technology for many thousands of years, everything from insulation to keep us warm, to mechanical watches that track the time. So, what’s new about the current branch of wearable tech? How does it bring new and exciting possibilities to life, and what is our role as designers in this world? That is the topic of this book, and one that is explored and elaborated on in depth in the next 11 chapters.

It’s an exciting time to be a designer working in technology. Miniaturization, toughness, price decreases, and long battery life have moved computing into new places and packages. Our phones and personal devices are now substantially faster and more capable than the super computers I used at university, and they’re loaded with purpose-built sensors that collect data on everything we do. With this capability comes a lot of opportunity for new creations, both good and bad. As we move computers closer to our bodies and imbue them with the power to understand our physicality and psychology, we need to think carefully about how we use these powers. When the devices we use affect the way we understand ourselves through our bodies, fitness, diet, and more, the interactions can be fraught with psychological and social nuance. The way we design these interactions can have a huge impact on the lives of the people who use them, helping them or reinforcing negative aspects of culture. Scott does a great job of exploring these potential pitfalls in this book, and along the way he talks about some of the history that got us here.

Fitness trackers and the like are the most common today, but new forms of wearable tech are emerging. Sousveillance, a term coined by the godfather of wearable computing, Steve Mann, is the practice of recording from within an activity, as opposed to surveillance, which is recording something from above, or outside, of the activity itself. Wearable always-on cameras let people record, sousveil, their life as they go through it. Mann has been wearing a camera and computer every day since the 1980s, capturing his life from his own perspective. As this tech becomes cheaper and smaller, more and more people are incorporating it into their daily wear. What does it mean to be watching and recording one another all the time? How does it change our relationships and public social activity? These are interesting questions that should be explored through a reflexive practice of prototyping and research.

Over the following pages Scott Sullivan elaborates on these ideas through examples, how-to, and history. He weaves together many disparate ideas that show us how wearable technology is more than just the device that sits on your wrist/neck/clothes; it is also the invisible services, culture, and behavior behind the devices that give them their power. Ultimately, wearables aren’t about putting computers on your body; they’re about changing the way we live and behave together. They can change the way we understand one another and how we present a picture of ourselves through outward appearance augmented with data.

This book is a beginning. A thorough and enjoyable beginning that gives us some history, some philosophy, some practice and technique, and a foundation upon which we can build a deep and thoughtful approach to designing wearables. I can’t wait to see what we do with the information and techniques that follow.

—MATT NISH-LAPIDUS, INTERACTION DESIGNER AND CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIST