The Intuitive Jacket: Creating A Wearable Interface Acknowledging the Role of the Body in Trauma Mental Health

We present a novel, wearable interface as an investigative tool for digital mental healthcare. Immersive environments for therapeutic interventions can potentially involve the whole body of the user in the experience, but often the interaction is through handheld controllers or virtual buttons. Building on suggestions in a previous study from users of an immersive environment for trauma mental healthcare, we developed a new interface, The Intuitive Jacket, to offer control and personalization to the therapeutic process. Our design consists of a physical jacket, allowing users to perform an emotionally powerful interaction: By touching the region of their heart at the end of the session, they “close the door” to the trauma the have been processing. The jacket contains a conductive thread sensor that communicates the garment wearer's gesture to the software via Bluetooth. It was created via a multidisciplinary collaboration between HCI, Fashion Design and Electronics.