Co-designing Magic Machines for Everyday Mindfulness with Practitioners

Thirty mindfulness practitioners with varying levels of experience participated in nine magic machine workshops to explore and reflect on their personal everyday mindfulness activities. They generated designs that support daily practice, resulting in six categories: everyday objects, physical spaces, wearables, metaphorical art, companions, and toys. The practitioners' thought processes emphasized eliciting and regulating emotion and associating mindfulness with routine daily activities. The findings suggest that individualized mindfulness products and co-design magic machine workshops can help explore practical design spaces for supporting everyday mindfulness beyond formal meditation training.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Many digital technologies have been invented to support mindfulness, the practice of bringing attention to the present moment without judgment. While most technologies focus on mindfulness meditation training for novices, in this paper, we explore designing technology to support everyday mindfulness activities for people with varying levels of experience. Through 9 magic machine workshops, 30 mindfulness practitioners explored and reflected on their personal experiences of everyday mindfulness, and generated designs that support their daily practice. Our findings identified six categories of designs conceptualized by our participants: everyday objects, physical spaces, wearables, metaphorical art, companions, and toys. We further analyze the practitioners’ thought processes and considerations for designs that support everyday mindfulness, such as eliciting and regulating emotion and associating mindfulness with routine daily activities. Finally, we discuss the implications of designing individualized mindfulness products and the potential of using co-design magic machine workshops to explore a practical design space.