I Like This Shirt

Quick Info

Project Date Jan. 1, 2014 - April 25, 2015
PIs: Jon E. Froehlich (PI)

Keywords: e-textiles, tangible social interaction, social fabric, social objects

About

"I Like This Shirt!"
Physically touching the shirt triggers a 'like', which is immediately displayed via e-textiles and registered on the Internet

Over the past decade, technologies that mediate and support human-to-human interactions (e.g., social networks) have become integral tools for a range of lightweight social interactions. With a single click to ‘favorite’ or ‘like’, social media users can demonstrate their interest in a specific person, event, or piece of content. In our research, we are exploring the translation of these lightweight social interactions into the physical world as design provocations. In this paper, we introduce one example called “I Like This Shirt”, a tangible manifestation of the ubiquitous Like button embedded in an interactive t-shirt. The shirt responds to physical touches, which indicate “likes” and tracks and visualizes the “like count” in real-time on the shirt itself.