Date: Wednesday, October 21

Time: 1 – 2 pm

Room location: GHC 6115

Zoom link: https://cmu.zoom.us/j/97081285448?pwd=OvaBlpZG3whhrdtg3QSUP0bGPipbKW.1

Title: Designing & Evaluating Machine-Knitted Stim Objects for Autistic Adults

Stimming is a valuable coping strategy and form of expression for Autistic people. However, research has historically scrutinized stimming through a negative, corrective model. When research instead prioritizes the Autistic perspective, an avenue opens for custom stimming resources that allows Autistic people to experience meaningful and stimulating interactions with sensory materials. Stimming can involve purpose-made objects (“stim objects”)—often small and portable, these objects come in a variety of textures, colors, functions, and sensory elements. Most commercial stim objects are mass-produced using traditional polymers, with little focus on how the material meets the user’s sensory needs. Fabrics are ubiquitous tactile materials with intricate, tunable properties. In my talk, I will show that knitted fabrics make highly effective stim objects for this reason—designers can tune their material properties at the micro stitch-level, allowing for parameterized textural and interactive possibilities that are well suited for manipulation by hand.

My talk will cover my multi-stage research process to answer the question: How can we design custom machine-knitted stim objects that meet the diverse sensory needs of Autistic adults? I will begin by covering the background survey I conducted to gather data to inform the subsequent design and fabrication stage, followed by an overview of my follow-up user-study for evaluating prototypes with feedback from Autistic adults. Finally, I will discuss future work with applications for custom stim objects, improved commercial resources, and design guidelines based on relevant sensory and material axes.

Jim McCann (co-advisor)

Andrew Begel (co-advisor)

Jodi Forlizzi

Yuichi Hirose