Designing for engagement: tangible interaction in multisensory environments

Abstract

The pedagogical use of multisensory environments (MSE/Snoezelen) addresses the fundamentals of engagement in the world through rich, wondrous and sensuous experiences. Despite the diversity of artefacts and materials used in these practices, interactive designs are few, screen-centric or limited to simplistic behaviour. Twenty-four children with profound developmental disabilities from three MSE institutions have together with us and pedagogues explored potentials in interactivity for MSE. From a suite of 17 interactive designs, we will describe the three we will demo.