Alexandra Ling Ju
ABSTRACT
Recent developments in the wearable devices domain with the several high profile product launches around smart watches and glasses have captured the collective public imagination. These developments suggest the inevitable next step in the evolution of mobile devices and how we interact with the technology. The expectations for wearable devices range from an always-on information provider, a data recorder, a body signal collector, and a sense transformer, to an ultimate mind reader and a confidante. However, before trying to achieve these impossibly high expectations, wearable devices need to address the many obstacles of a highly complex personal design space, including delicate support for expressive, intimate, visual and auditory properties as well as respect for the personal-public boundary.
We believe that in order to overcome these obstacles one needs to depart from the existing paradigms of smartphones and, especially, mobile screens. We argue that the starting point resides in embracing traditions of jewelry design because of its inherent communicative qualities. Through discussion of several alternative approaches we argue for development of smart jewelry, which removes the disconnect between the wearable and the screen and focuses on the positive psychological, tactile, and performative aspects.
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Index Terms
- Smart Jewelry: The Future of Mobile User Interfaces
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