User experience and interactive textiles: A textile designer's perspective

This research explores new user experience as a component of the interactive textile design process for classic textile designers who are willing to expand to the interactive textile field, using collaborative workshop outputs. Interactive textiles can be created by integrating the value of a tangible material property with embedded technology to provide users with aesthetic and comfort. However, the two disciplines of textile creation and technology embedding vary in practice and purpose. Textile designers can solve problems by utilising materials and re-inventing their own techniques, and by making and designing textures and structures. By contrast, engineers solve problems by sharing their techniques for specific users. Integrating two specialisations with dissimilar processes is a challenge in smart textile production. Moreover, design research focusing on the relationship between user needs and interactive experience at the initial stage of smart textile design is currently lacking, and this research limitation can hinder the meaningful interactive experience. This study investigates on user experience-related, material-led textile and interactive textile design processes. Then, findings are analysed using the collaborative workshop outputs of the Royal College of Art and Hong Kong Polytechnic University conducted by Tan and Toomey from a textile designer perspective. Consequently, opportunities to integrate dissimilar design processes are explored. New user experience as a component of the interactive textile design process may encourage textile designers to contribute their rich skills, knowledge, and experience in material handling in the interactive textile design effectively.