Felt-sensing archetypes: analysing patterns of accessing tacit meaning in design

Abstract

As technology becomes embedded in our everyday life, the development of methods for accessing experience has become an important theme in the field of human-computer interaction and design. Currently most user evaluation techniques are still concerned with conscious assessment of devices and systems, ignoring that our bodily senses are constantly capturing information at an unconscious level. Based on Gendlin's Focusing technique, we introduce a method of archetype analysis that considers the importance of the body as the door to access meaning encapsulated in people's tacit dimension. Drawing on the outcomes from different somatic exercises involving the reflection on everyday objects and situations, six archetypes reflecting participant's inner connection with each scenario were generated. As a result, richer descriptions and more bodily self-aware archetypes (felt-sensers) were obtained in the reflection on everyday situations over objects. These findings make sense with the interactional process of meaning-generation experienced by the lived body.