A. Stoltzfus
Independent Consultant,
United States
Keywords: materials, textiles, design, softgoods
Summary:
As softgoods plays a greater role in hardware engineering devices and integrated wearables, we must consider the textile as a core interchange for defining interactions. While softgoods manufacturing methods provide an extensive range of material customization, there is an information gap in unified properties across aesthetics and performance. These nonverbal communication (aesthetic) features are key aspects of designing acceptance criteria of new technology adoption. Here, “aesthetics” are defined in its first recorded form as “knowledge gained through the senses” (Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten), which highlights the grander spectrum of encounters engineered in the haptics and acoustics of immersive experiences. As the sensory complexity grows, it requires simplification of systems at early stage design, where we can consider hierarchies of a textile subsystem/system and functional density potential for each, given the real estate limitations by form factors such as virtual reality gloves in comparison with a shirt or an automotive interior. In this talk, I will discuss key themes of these softgoods design paths in consumer electronics and considerations in their actualization: 1) cosmetic facades for luxury tech 2) scaffoldings for computing wearables & new sustainable materials 3) integrated textile composites for wearable devices. Whether incorporating directional extensibility which allows sensors to maintain feature alignment or modular non-textile components requiring low tolerance feature proximities, the translational concepts express the accelerating need for physical, digital, and perceptual representation in future engineered textiles.