New book by Sile O’Modhrain explores how the human body shapes interaction design experiences

University of Michigan School of Information professor Sile O’Modhrain is bringing a new perspective to how we design and understand technology. Her new book, “A Dialogue of the Senses: Designing Interaction with the Body in Mind” is now available through MIT Press. 

The book challenges what O’Modhrain sees as a flaw in how designers create interactive systems. By treating the “user” as a black box rather than a complex, moving body that actively shapes every interaction, designers risk overlooking how perception, action and the coordination of the senses shape how people experience technology. 

The idea for the book began during O’Modhrain’s time as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT Media Lab, where she taught a course with the same name. 

“I found that students were drawing block diagrams of their interactive systems with inputs and outputs to a black box labeled 'user,' without much understanding of what was happening inside the black box,’” she says. “That is what started me on the whole project.”

Today, O’Modhrain is excited to continue expanding this conversation through the new book. Her career has long explored research into haptics, perception and interaction, centering accessibility and advancing technologies that support how people with diverse sensory and physical experiences engage with the world. 

“I think I am most excited about providing more energy for the conversation about the role of the body in mediating our interaction with the world, including the interactive devices in that world that we design,” she says. “Through reorienting thinking around perception and action in this way, my hope is that people will center the role of the body in addressing each of these elements in interaction design.” 

With its emphasis on embodiment, the book contributes to a greater understanding about how perception emerges through the coordination of the body’s sensory systems, shaping how we experience and move through the world. 

“The sensory systems of the body do not act in isolation,” she says. “Together they support us in making sense of the things around us and in successfully moving about and doing things in the world.” 

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Sile O’Modhrain is a professor of music at the School of Music, Theatre and Dance and a professor of information at UMSI. Learn more about her research and teaching by visiting her UMSI faculty profile and her personal website. 

Purchase “A Dialogue of the Senses: Designing Interaction with the Body in Mind” through MIT Press.