On 30/1/2026, I had another coaching session, but this time with Martin Kaltenbrunner. I shared my thesis topic again, but after my last conversation with Hort Hörstner, I had refined it a little. This time, I was asking new questions and exploring my updated path. It felt like I was slowly discovering a clearer direction for my research.
During our conversation, a term came up that really caught my attention: Soma Design, developed by Kristina Höök.
To understand it better, I watched a seminar from Stanford University (you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwBTNAq8Qy8).
Here’s what I learned:
Soma design is a design approach that puts the felt, living body at the center of the process. It comes from somaesthetics, a philosophy that connects our sensing, moving body (soma) with the idea of paying attention to our sensory experiences (aesthetics). In design, this means focusing on how people feel, move, sense, and interact with the world, rather than only what they think or say. It’s a way of designing that listens to the body.
Höök explains that aesthetics here is not about beauty, but about a skill: the ability to notice and attend to the world through all your senses. By doing this, you can feel more pleasure, interest, and awareness in everyday life. I found this idea inspiring, and it connects closely to my topic. Social anxiety is something we experience through the body. So I started asking myself: What if design could help people become more aware of their own bodies?
She shared two examples that really made the idea clear. One was Breathing Light, a lamp that changes brightness with a person’s breathing. The other was Soma Mat, a heated mat that reacts to touch. Both are simple, but they create an immediate connection between the body and the environment.
This gave me an idea for my thesis. Instead of only showing social anxiety visually or conceptually, I could measure bodily responses, like breathing or heart rate, to help people understand how the body reacts in uneasy social situations. By letting the body “speak,” design could create experiences that help people explore, reflect, and become aware without forcing them to explain or perform.
Soma design changed the way I think about my research. It is less about controlling or representing a problem and more about creating a space where people can feel, sense, and explore. I’m excited to see how I can bring these ideas into my prototypes, letting the body guide the design and helping people connect with their own experiences in a gentle, human-centered way.
AI was used for corrections, better wording, and enhancements.
