Kinesthetic Interaction: Revealing the Bodily Potential in Interaction Design

Within the Human-Computer Interaction community there is a growing interest in designing for the whole body in interaction design. The attempts aimed at addressing the body have very different outcomes spanning from theoretical arguments for understanding the body in the design process, to more practical examples of designing for bodily potential. This paper presents Kinesthetic Interaction as a unifying concept for describing the body in motion as a foundation for designing interactive systems. Based on the theoretical foundation for Kinesthetic Interaction, a conceptual framework is introduced to reveal bodily potential in relation to three design themes – kinesthetic development, kinesthetic means and kinesthetic disorder; and seven design parameters – engagement, sociality, movability, explicit motivation, implicit motivation, expressive meaning and kinesthetic empathy. The framework is a tool to be utilized when analyzing existing designs, as well as developing designs exploring new ways of designing kinesthetic interactions.