SAIL
This project stems from a time when I was trying to understand my own emotions about intimacy that comes along with being touched. Touch is one of the first senses we develop, shaping how we connect with the world from the start. It's woven into our everyday lives, especially through our hands, which constantly explore and interact with our surroundings. One aspect of touch that really intrigues and fascinates me is self-touch—the unconscious act of touching our own bodies. It happens all the time, in different contexts and moods.
Sometimes, we do it consciously but most of the the time it is so unconscious that we don't even realise we are doing it. Whether it’s running our fingers through our hair or simply resting our hand on our arm when deep in thought. It’s a behavior that’s so common yet neither is it talked about often nor is it fully appreciated. What’s really interesting is how self-touch can both reflect and influence our emotions—it can calm us in moments of stress but can also help us focus and process information. Despite how often it happens, we don’t make the most of this natural behavior, especially in a world filled with distractions.
This project explores the idea of integrating self-touch into our daily life through textiles. Now you may wonder why textiles? We often interact with our clothes subconsciously, adjusting sleeves or pulling zippers so much so that it is considered as the most touched "body part." By designing textiles that encourage mindful self-touch, we can create a deeper connection with ourselves and enhance our sense of well-being. The project explores this potential in everyday fabrics.
INITIAL QUESTION
What is self-touch?
Is self-touch really about ourselves?
The project began with the research question, "Is self-touch really about ourselves?" To address this, an exploratory literature review was conducted instead of a systematic one, as existing research on self-touch is fragmented across various sources and there is no single source present. Using a snowball method, the study first examined self-touch in relation to self-formation, then expanded to cover its connection to social interactions. This involved reviewing diverse research papers, journals, and articles to piece together insights from various perspectives. The approach was exploratory and aimed to inform rather than provide a comprehensive synthesis.
Let's look into these findings very briefly, you can read the research in detail here.
WHAT IS SELF-TOUCH?
When we look at self-touch from the lens of a behaviour, known as self-adaptors, then it is a learned behaviour that is a part of our adaptive efforts to fulfil our bodily needs, carry out actions and manage emotions. From a psychological perspective self-touch, can be seen as an integral part of our being, where the body as a double reference for example when your hand touches the other hand - the body is being touched and is touching something at the same time. Lastly, self-touch has also been seen to have a social aspect to it - self touch and the others, where our interactions with people or their action of self-touch influences our actions.
SELF-TOUCH AS A LEARNED BEHAVIOUR
Ekman & Friesen
SELF-TOUCH AS A BODY AND THE SELF
Ponty & Husserl
SELF-TOUCH AS A BODY AND THE SELF
Cooperative self-touch
These perspectives showcase the complexity of self-touch and offer a deeper understanding of its definition: "In nonverbal communication, self-touch is a conscious or unconscious act where a person touches their own body, like their hair, face, or ear." Next, I explored why and how do we engage in these behaviours.
SIGNIFICANCE OF SELF-TOUCH?
Self-touch is associated with both negative and positive emotions depending upon the context - what, where, with whom and why? If you are listening or talking in a conversation, if you are in a hospital or a cafe, with a friend or a stranger. It increases while performing cognitive tasks - concentrating, thinking or listening, but at the same time it also increases when we experience anxiety, stress, tension.
The context or the emotions we feel also impact the body part we touch during the self-touch actions.
AREAS OF SELF-TOUCH
The head, face, and neck are the most touched parts of the body, followed by hand-hand/hand-arm and clothing. Interestingly, though clothing isn't part of our body, it often feels like an extension due to constant contact. It’s closely tied to our skin, blending into our daily experience. Clothing not only covers us but also reflects identity and societal changes. What we wear can affect our mindset—blazers boost productivity, while sweatpants can reduce focus. Fidgeting with fabric can even be calming. This connection between clothing and the body is why I chose to focus on it for this project which further helped me scope down the project and define its focus.
The scope of this project lies at the intersection of the body, textiles, and self-touch, as shown in the diagram above. To understand designing for bodily experience, the ideology behind somaesthetic design was applied. This approach emphasizes designing through bodily awareness and experience. Textiles, which act as a second skin, were explored using the Material Driven Design (MDD) framework and Material to Experience toolkit, focusing on how materials can be used to enhance well-being. Given the exploratory nature of the topic, a research-through-design approach was adopted to address the research gaps and guide the design decisions moving forward.
OBSERVATION STUDY
FOCUS GROUP WORKSHOP
After the literature review, an observation study was conducted in a café which helped me identified the key factors influencing self-touch—personal, contextual, and external—showing its role in daily life. To explore further, a 2-day workshop was held, with Day 1 focusing on self-touch and Day 2 on its link to textiles. These sessions offered deeper insights into the subject with Day 1 providing the following insights:
The content of the conversation did not affect the self-touch actions as much as the position of the participant - speaker or listener
Stroking, rubbing and pressing are the most common types of self-touch actions.
The self-touch actions are carried out without awareness.
Moreover day 2 of the workshop helped in understanding the qualities of textiles that enhance or diminish sensory experience. I also looked into the emotions which are evoked through these qualities of textiles. It was found
Tactile properties such as lightness, softness, texture, and stretchiness were identified as contributing positively to the tactile interaction.
Qualities such as warmth, noise, and overly soft or spongy textures were found to diminish the self-touch experience.
Emotions evoked through different qualities of textiles were
Ability to change colour /Playfulness
Softness/ Comfort, Memories
Texture/ Fascination, Attraction
Lightness/ Confidence
Warmth/ Discomfort
The literature review, observation study, and workshop helped address research gaps and provided a practical understanding of self-touch and its application in daily life. Due to the lack of comprehensive sources in existing literature, understanding self-touch was challenging. Through my research, I redefined self-touch and categorized it into different types, creating a taxonomy that clarifies the concept and provides examples of its applications. Additionally, I developed a taxonomy exploring the relationship between textiles, the body, and self-touch through various variables, serving as a practical tool for designers to use in future studies. These taxonomies form the foundation for the design phase of the project and address my research questions. For more details on the taxonomy, please download the PDF.
Taxonomy 1: Self-touch and its categories
Taxonomy 2: Self-touch in relation to textiles
RESEARCH QUESTION
How can textiles encourage and facilitate self-touch?
How can textile enhance skin-to-skin self-touch to provide individuals support in overwhelming moments?
To address these questions and begin the design development phase, a hands-on rapid prototyping approach was adopted. This led to the creation of three prototype series: Series 1 with 9 prototypes, Series 2 with 6, and Series 3 with 9. Series 1 and 2 explored stroking, pressing, and rubbing motions of self-touch, which were later refined to focus solely on stroking in Series 3. Below is an overview of the development and testing of these prototype series along with the key findings focusing on the qualities of the textiles.
Prototype Series 1
The textile used for the prototypes was soft cotton, commonly chosen for baby products due to its gentle feel. During the workshop, softness was identified as a key factor in enhancing self-touch, so this fabric was consistently used, with variations in texture and thickness. The testing session revealed several insights, but the two main findings are:
Texture is Stimulating: Participants found that texture encourages interaction with the textile and guides their movements.
Preference for Skin-to-Skin Touch: A notable and challenging insight was that participants preferred skin-to-skin contact for self-touch over touching a textile. This led to the development of research question 2 and development of series 2.
Building on the foundation of Prototype Series 1, which effectively addressed Research Question 1 through texture, I adopted a more refined approach. I cut specific parts from the original prototypes and incorporated them into the new designs to make them more skin-like. The goal was to use textiles in a way that naturally guides people's hands across their skin, enhancing the tactile experience. Here, the variable of contact area from the taxonomy played a crucial role.
It was observed that the gaps between the fabric create an interesting contrast, making the touch feel more intimate. Additionally, the presence of threads enhances the sensation of hair on the skin, allowing for a free-flowing feeling. This insight contributed to the design goal of fostering a deeper connection with self-touch.
Prototype Series 2
Prototype Series 1
DESIGN GOAL
My design goal is to encourage people to engage in skin-to-skin self-touch for emotional support in overwhelming situations.
In Prototype Series 3, three key elements were integrated
Folds in the Fabric: These guided the direction of hand movement, facilitating a natural forward motion.
Threads: The length of the threads directed the contact area, guiding hand movements along the arm.
Gaps Between Textile Bands: These allowed for comfortable horizontal use of multiple fingertips, encouraging participants to stroke horizontally and interact more with their skin.
For this series, I switched from cotton to bamboo cotton, an organic material that introduced a texture missing in Series 2. The variables of direction remained unidirectional, and the width of the textile stayed constant, while I experimented with the texture and the gaps between the bands. It was found that these changes enhanced the tactile experience, making interactions feel more natural and organic, while the gaps encouraged skin-to-skin contact. Moreover, the SUS (System Usability Scale) score on participants experiences revealed that the textile effectively enhanced and encouraged self-touch.
Prototype Series 3 showcasing 4 variations out of 9
TESTING AND DEVELOPMENT OF FINAL DESIGN
"For a second I thought it was my hair"
"I like the last part and how it flows over the skin"
"I go up to down to feel the bumps"
"I do feel like I am feeling myself more"
RESEARCH ARTEFACT
The final testing led to the creation of the final design, a research artefact that encourages and enhances self-touch through textile. This artefact represents the techniques and findings of the research, demonstrating how it can be applied or incorporated into future products. Three versions of the design were created—Version 1, 2, and 3. Each version differs in size, the number of textile bands, and the presence, absence, or length of threads. These versions can also be worn together, allowing for customization and personalization of the experience.