Physically-bodied artefacts made with interactive materials, when affording an affective experience, can unlock tremendous design opportunities to significantly improve user experience and benefit physical and mental well-being. Yet such potential has rarely been exploited within the emergent space of affective interaction design. Designing artefacts with interactive materials that enable affective experience poses challenges, both in relation to the emergent nature of affect and in navigating the unfolding properties of materials in their physical and temporal forms and their interactive gestalt. In this crossdisciplinary space, it is difficult for designers to tackle the challenges within one specific domain of expertise, and there is a lack of design knowledge to support the form-giving process of creating affect-enabling interactive artefacts.

My research initiated an effort to address this gap. It asked:

How can we design artefacts using interactive materials that enable affective experience?

To address this question, I combined knowledge and approaches from three domains – an interactional approach, fashion practice and material-centred interaction design – to formulate the affect-, material- and interaction- (AMI)-led design framework which guided my practice. This framework is grounded in the affect theories proposed by Barrett and Massumi to consider affect as an event, an emergence that can only be enabled through interaction.

Focusing on one type of interactive material – silicone pneumatic soft robotic (SPSR) material – my research took a Research through Design approach and followed the methods of studio practice, co-exploration and assessment.

In order to develop an artefact with an affect-enabling outcome, my practice progressed through three phases of exploration. The initial exploration focused on the designability and affective affordance of the silicone pneumatic soft robotic (SPSR) material. A further exploration, with a broad focus, investigated designing for a positive affective touch experience. The third exploration, with a defined focus, was about creating and evaluating the final artefact – a soft robotic device (S-CAT device) which delivers a gentle stroking touch. With the evaluation results I showed that touch delivered by the S-CAT device elicited a pleasant sensation, and that it can modulate a subjective response that is similar to that elicited by the touch of a human hand or a soft brush.

My research makes an original contribution to both theory and practice within the space of affective interaction design. Through a practice-based design exploration, I demonstrated one possible pathway to creating an affect-enabling artefact with SPSR material, applying the affect-, material-, and interaction-led (AMI-led) design framework. This framework and its associated methods of studio practice, co-exploration and assessment can potentially be applied for generative, analytical, communication and educational purposes in design practice and research within the space of affective interaction design. The S-CAT device has demonstrated that it is possible for soft robotic material to produce an affective touch, which opens up the field for the exploration of further design opportunities, including those in healthcare. The research produced practical design knowledge of how to design affective touch stimulation.