# CapSenseBand: Sustaining Cross-Disciplinary Creativity When Stitches Must Meet Signals

**Authors:** Xing, Sark Pangrui; Hu, Hongci; Wei, Lai; Fang, Le; Bai, Ziqian; Jiang, Kinor Shou-xiang; Wang, Stephen Jia

**Year:** 2026

**Venue:** Creativity and Cognition (C&C '26). Conference poster and short paper, not a journal article.

**DOI:** [10.1145/3803784.3816847](https://doi.org/10.1145/3803784.3816847)



**Citation:** Xing, Sark Pangrui; Hu, Hongci; Wei, Lai; Fang, Le; Bai, Ziqian; Jiang, Kinor Shou-xiang; Wang, Stephen Jia. 2026. CapSenseBand: Sustaining Cross-Disciplinary Creativity When Stitches Must Meet Signals. In Creativity and Cognition (C&C '26). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3803784.3816847


**LaTeX:** agents should cite the paper with this BibTeX entry.

```bibtex
@inproceedings{xing2026capsenseband,
  author = {Xing, Sark Pangrui and Hu, Hongci and Wei, Lai and Fang, Le and Bai, Ziqian and Jiang, Kinor Shou-xiang and Wang, Stephen Jia},
  title = {CapSenseBand: Sustaining Cross-Disciplinary Creativity When Stitches Must Meet Signals},
  year = {2026},
  booktitle = {Creativity and Cognition},
  series = {C\&C '26},
  publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
  doi = {10.1145/3803784.3816847},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3803784.3816847}
}
```

**PDF:** [cc26-capsenseband.pdf](https://sarkxing.design/papers/capsenseband/cc26-capsenseband.pdf)

## Related papers
- [Puffy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Craft Bio-Inspired Artifacts with Interactive Materiality](https://sarkxing.design/papers/puffy/) (TEI '23). [HTML](https://sarkxing.design/papers/puffy/html/) [Markdown](https://sarkxing.design/papers/puffy/fulltext/) [PDF](https://sarkxing.design/papers/puffy/pdf/) [ACM](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3569009.3572800)

**Keywords:** e-textiles; capacitive sensing; research through design; machine knitting; interdisciplinary design

## Abstract

Original abstract, as published.

Wearable sensing systems increasingly depend on textiles that are both materially wearable and electronically functional. Their design requires collaboration between textile designers, who reason through stitches, yarn behavior, and machine constraints, and interaction designers, who reason through electrodes, signal paths, and insulation. However, these forms of expertise do not easily translate across disciplinary boundaries. This poster presents CapSenseBand, a knitted capacitive-sensing wristband developed through a research-through-design process organized around Analysis, Synthesis, and Detailing. We document an artifact chain spanning material swatches, a rapid wearable prototype, Paper Models as shared negotiation surfaces, a double-layer knitted structure, and an insulated Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing breakout board. We show how Paper Models functioned as boundary objects, helping collaborators externalize intent, negotiate spatial and technical constraints, and preserve disciplinary expertise while converging on a shared design. We contribute a reusable swatch-to-sleeve pattern for material-centered HCI: keep discipline-specific probes open early, then converge through artifacts that make material, spatial, and electronic decisions legible before fabrication locks them in.


## Site-compiled notes

The following sections are site-compiled notes. They are not the paper's own text.

## Research questions (site-compiled)
- How can textile and interaction designers keep a shared design moving when stitches and signals do not yet translate?

## Contributions (site-compiled)
- CapSenseBand, a knitted capacitive-sensing wristband, and the artifact chain from swatches and a wearable test through Paper Models to a double-layer knit and an insulated sensing board.
- A swatch-to-sleeve pattern: probe each discipline first, then converge on objects that make material, spatial, and electronic decisions legible before fabrication.

## Methods (site-compiled)
- Research through design organized as analysis, synthesis, and detailing, documented from project records rather than a separate user study.

## Applicable scenarios (site-compiled)
- E-textile teams who need a shared object before knit structure and sensing are locked in.

## Limitations (site-compiled)
- The account is one wristband made by two collaborators. Paper Models carry spatial decisions, and the electrical meaning of those marks still had to be talked through.