Abstract
Enquête d’âme is an interactive installation and research instrument that reimagines design impact assessment by shifting from affect detection to wellbeing articulation. A textile-covered keyboard allows participants to select from sixteen wellbeing dimensions; each input generates a coloured circle within a shared projection, forming an evolving visualisation of collective resonance. Three public deployments—a cultural event, arts festival, and university showcase—combined observations, brief interviews, and log analysis. Findings show that slow, tactile interaction fosters mindful engagement; participants treat the dimensions as reflective anchors rather than diagnostic labels; and aggregate patterns vary contextually (e.g., Optimism/Future-self in policy discussions, Playfulness/Participation in festival settings). The paper contributes: (1) an embodied method for participatory wellbeing visualisation; (2) a mixed-methods instrument coupling expressive self-report with analysable traces; and (3) a visual grammar that supports empathic, plural sense-making as an alternative model of design impact.
Keywords
participatory visualisation; wellbeing; embodied interaction; collective sense-making
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1057
Citation
O'Nascimento, R., and Petreca, B. (2026) Enquête d’âme: A participatory visualisation of wellbeing through embodied reflection, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1057
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Enquête d’âme: A participatory visualisation of wellbeing through embodied reflection
Enquête d’âme is an interactive installation and research instrument that reimagines design impact assessment by shifting from affect detection to wellbeing articulation. A textile-covered keyboard allows participants to select from sixteen wellbeing dimensions; each input generates a coloured circle within a shared projection, forming an evolving visualisation of collective resonance. Three public deployments—a cultural event, arts festival, and university showcase—combined observations, brief interviews, and log analysis. Findings show that slow, tactile interaction fosters mindful engagement; participants treat the dimensions as reflective anchors rather than diagnostic labels; and aggregate patterns vary contextually (e.g., Optimism/Future-self in policy discussions, Playfulness/Participation in festival settings). The paper contributes: (1) an embodied method for participatory wellbeing visualisation; (2) a mixed-methods instrument coupling expressive self-report with analysable traces; and (3) a visual grammar that supports empathic, plural sense-making as an alternative model of design impact.