Many interfaces do not feature body directly but yet affect it when not carefully designed: online shopping webpages making us feel insecure about our bodies, health tracking apps igniting anxiety…. This project focuses on applying body-centered research methods to interface design where the body may not be the main focus, yet embodied interaction experiences are what ultimately matter. The previous-semester project (BodyUX, SoSe 2026) allowed us to explore methodologies for talking with participants about the body and understanding what they feel when interacting with technologies such as phones, laptops, and tablets. Building on this knowledge, this project offers a design task: tackling a new or existing screen-based interface issue in which the body plays an indirect but important role. As an example of the kind of direction such a project can take, you can read our paper: - I Felt Like I Need to Fit in Someone Else’s Body – Understanding Body-Centered UX Design for Online Fashion Shopping. Proc. ACM CHI ’26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3791225
In this project, you will explore how we can bring a stronger focus on the body into digital interface design by applying body-centered research methods throughout the whole design process: from ideation and user studies to design, prototyping, testing, and evaluation of the final design. The project will have two phases: (1) Understanding methods and developing a project direction During the first phase, we will briefly introduce body-centered and embodied research methods, read relevant literature, and participate in an ongoing study on understanding embodiment in interactions with everyday technologies. You will use this phase to learn and try out the methods and to develop the problem you would like to work on. (2) Designing and evaluating your own interface concept In the second phase, you will work on your own project. You will conduct research, develop digital designs and prototypes, try them out with users, and evaluate how a body-centered perspective influenced both the design process and the resulting interface. The goal is to work together towards research publications based on the mini-projects as case studies. At the same time, the resulting designs and prototypes can become portfolio projects, starting points for a future thesis, or the basis for further research projects. We highly encourage you to bring your own ideas for project topics in which a focus on the body is particularly important for a screen-based interface. It is also completely fine if you do not yet have a fully formed project idea — we can develop ideas together and form teams during the first phase of the project. Some topics may also be tackled in groups of two or three. If there is already a problem, application area, or interface you would be interested in working on, please describe it briefly in your application. The project runs until the end of March. You can take either 12 ECTS or 18 ECTS, with the workload adjusted accordingly. Presence at project meetings and the ability to invest sufficient time in the project are mandatory requirements. Presence in Weimar throughout the semester is mandatory, as many activities will involve collaboratively running studies, testing methods, and working with your peers. Travel and personal arrangements during the semester break can be discussed upon request. Participation requires a short application letter sent to Margarita Osipova to confirm that you fulfil the prerequisites. Please check the participation requirements and the procedure for determining eligibility in the description above, and send an email including a short motivation statement, confirmation that you meet the requirements (e.g. what courses you took or relevant experience you have), and, if applicable, a brief project idea. For questions, clarifications, and applications, contact: margarita.osipova@uni-weimar.de |
