Co-design of Musical Haptic Wearables for electronic music performer’s communication

Communication among performers is a fundamental aspect in music performance. A large number of electronic music instruments based on tangible and screen-based interfaces require a focused visual attention from performers while they are controlled. In certain stage and artistic configurations, this may be an obstacle to face-to-face creative interactions between coperformers and their collaborators. To address these issues, we adopted a user-centered design methodology to develop a novel class of IoT devices that we term musical haptic wearables for performers. We conducted a co-design workshop with 10 electronic musicians using focus-group discussions and the bootlegging technique. This workshop identified numerous creative communication issues among performers in electronic music practice and resulted in mock-up prototypes. We then developed three chest-, foot-, and arm-worn haptic wearables respectively for coperformer, performer-conductor, and performer-sound-engineer interactions. The wearables were assessed with 25 participants using a mixed-methods approach. High accuracies (70%-100%) were obtained for musical actions expected after instructions wirelessly communicated via tactile signals. The results provide evidence that musical haptic wearables can be an effective medium of communication in the context of electronic music performances. More challenges were identified regarding size and placement of the devices on the body, interferences with concurrent vibrations generated by music signals, limitations on the range of creative controls, and a required training curve.