Writing & Publications

Books

Playful Wearables

Understanding the Design Space of Wearables for Games and Related Experiences

MIT Press (2024)

by Oğuz Buruk, Ella Dagan, Katherine Isbister, Elena Márquez Segura and Theresa Jean Tanenbaum

An expert introduction to the world of “playful wearables” and their design, with a wide range of engaging examples, case studies, and exercises.

This pioneering introduction to the world of wearable technology takes readers beyond the practical realm (think Fitbits, Apple Watches, and smartglasses) to consider another important side of the technology—the playful. Playful Wearables offers an engaging account of what “playful wearables” are, why they matter, how they work, how they're made, and what their future might hold. The book's authors draw on decades of experience in design, development, and research to offer real-world examples, exercises, and implications, showing how this kind of wearable tech can introduce an invaluable element of play into our everyday lives.

What people are saying about it...

“Playful Wearables is a blueprint for building the technology we actually want: its case studies, design exercises, and thoughtful frameworks are good reminders that our technologies can be more imaginative, inclusive, personable, and—most of all—fun.”~Madeline Gannon, founder and principal researcher, ATONATON

“Wearable computing will soon dominate digital innovation. Want to build bridges between physical and digital reality? Playful Wearables contains the blueprints in the form of both thoughtful frameworks and concrete examples.”~Jesse Schell, Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Entertainment Technology, Carnegie Mellon University; author of The Art of Game Design

“Playful wearables are increasingly important in games, art, and life, and this book is full of valuable theory, methods, and advice concerning their design and development. A must-have for everyone in this dynamic field!”~Richard Lemarchand, Associate Professor, USC Games; author of A Playful Production Process

The Pleasure of Playing Less

A Study of Incremental Games Through the Lens of Kittens

Well Played & Play Story Press (2nd Edition, 2025)

by: Sultan A. Alharthi, Phoebe O. Toups Dugas, Olaa Alsaedi, Theresa Jean Tanenbaum, & Jessica Hammer

In this book, we explore the pleasure of playing less through a collective experience of playing the Kittens Game -- a self-described “Dark Souls of incremental gaming”. We draw on techniques of close reading and hermeneutics to ground our analysis and supplement our individual reflections on how these games incentivize players to play less and plan more

Nonverbal Communication in Virtual Worlds

Understanding and Designing Expressive Characters

ETC Press (2014)

by: Theresa Jean Tanenbaum, Magy Seif El-Nasr, & Michael Nixon

In this book, we begin the work of articulating the challenges and possibilities for non-verbal communication in virtual worlds. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines and perspectives, we consider the past, present, and future of human communication online.

Selected Scholarly Publications

Design Fiction + Futures

Baumer, E.P.S., Blythe, M., & Tanenbaum, T.J. (2020). Evaluating Design Fiction: The Right Tool for the Job. Presented at Designing Interactive Systems (DIS’20). July 6-20, 2020. Eindhoven, The Netherlands (held virtually) pp 1901 – 1913

Pargman, D., Eriksson, E., Höök, M., Tanenbaum, T. J., Pufal, M., Wangel, T. J. (2017) What if there had only been half the oil? Rewriting history to envision the consequences of peak oil. Energy Research & Social Science September 2017, Vol 31 pp 170-178

Tanenbaum, T. J., Pufal, M., Tanenbaum, K. (2017) Furious Futures and apocalyptic design fictions: popular narratives of sustainability. Interactions, ACM Press, vol. 24 no 1 (January + February 2017). pp 64-67

Tanenbaum, T. J., Pufal, M., & Tanenbaum, K. (2016) The Limits of Our Imagination: Design Fiction as a Strategy for Engaging with Dystopian Futures. Presented at the Second Workshop on Computing Within Limits (LIMITS) 2016, June 9-10, Irvine, CA, USA. 9 Pages

Tanenbaum, T. J. + Tanenbaum K., (2015) Fabricating Futures: Envisioning Scenarios for Home Fabrication Technology. In Zagalo, N. & Branca, P. (eds.). Creativity in the Digital Age Springer-Verlag, London. pp 193-221

Tanenbaum, T. J. (2014) Design Fictional Interactions: Why HCI Should Care About Stories. Interactions. ACM Press, vol. 21 no. 5 (September + October 2014). pp 22-23.

Tanenbaum, T. J., Tanenbaum, K., & Wakkary, R. (2012). Steampunk as Design Fiction. Presented at CHI 2012, Austin, TX, USA. 1583 – 1592

Tanenbaum, T. J. (2011). Imagining New Design Spaces for Interactive Digital Storytelling. In M. Si, D. Thue, E. André, T. J. Lester, T. J. Tanenbaum & V. Zammitto (Eds.), Interactive Storytelling (Vol. 7069, pp. 261-271): Springer Berlin / Heidelberg.

Gender, Identity, + Queerness

Toups-Dugas, P., Tanenbaum, T.J. (2024). Learning to Fail Beautifully: Pole Dancing as a Case Study of Gender Euphoria & Dysphoria for Embodied Interaction Design. Halfway To The Future 2024.

Tanenbaum, T. J. (2021, May 19). Publishers: Changing the names of trans people in their own work is not enough. SAGE Perspectives Blog.

Tanenbaum, T. J., Rettig, I., Schwartz, H. M., Watson, B., Goets, T. G., Spiel, K., & Hill, M. (2021). A vision for a more trans-inclusive publishing world: Guest article. COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics.

Tanenbaum, T.J. (2020) Publishers: let transgender scholars correct their names. In Nature, Springer, volume 583, p. 493

Tanenbaum, T. J., Tanenbaum, K. (2018) Steampunk, Survivalism, and Sex Toys: An Exploration of How and Why HCI Studies Peripheral Practices. In Flimowicz, M. & Tzankova, V. (eds) New Directions in 3rd Wave HCI: Volume 2 – Methodologies. Springer

Tanenbaum T. J., & Tanenbaum, K. (2015) Empathy and Identity in Digital Games: Towards a New Theory of Transformative Play. Presented at Foundations of Digital Games, 2015. June 22-25, Pacific Grove, CA, USA. 9 Pages

Tangible, Wearable, + Embodied Interaction

Gupta, S., Bertran, F. A., “Oz” Buruk, O., Espinosa, S. M., Tanenbaum, T.J., & Wu, M. (2021). Exploring Food based Interactive, Multi-Sensory, and Tangible Storytelling Experiences. Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2021, 651–665.

Burak, O, Isbister, K., & Tanenbaum, T. J. (2019) A Design Framework for Playful Wearables. Presented at Foundations of Digital Games (FDG’19) August 26-30. San Luis Obispo, CA, USA. 12 Pages

Gupta, S. & Tanenbaum, T. J. (2019) Evaluating the Pleasures of Agency in Shiva’s Rangoli, a Tangible Storytelling Installation. Presented at Designing Interactive Systems (DIS’19) June 23-28, 2019. San Diego, CA, USA

Jing, K., Nygaard, N., & Tanenbaum, T. J. (2017) Magia Transformo: Designing for Mixed Reality Transformative Play. Presented at ACM CHI Play, 2017, October 15-18, Amsterdam, Netherlands. pp 421 – 429

Lazar, A., Koehler, C., Tanenbaum, T. J., & Nguyen, D. (2015) Why We Use and Abandon Smart Devices. Ubicomp, 2015, September 7-11, Osaka, Japan. pp 635 – 646

Tanenbaum, T. J., & Tanenbaum, K. (2015) Envisioning the Future of Wearable Play: Conceptual Models for Props and Costumes as Game Controllers. Presented at Foundations of Digital Games, 2015. June 22-25, Pacific Grove, CA, USA. 5 Pages

Tanenbaum, K., Tanenbaum, T. J., Antle, A., Bizzocchi, T. J., Seif El-Nasr, M., & Hatala, M. (2011) Experiencing the Reading Glove. Presented at Conference on Tangibles and Embedded Interaction (TEI’11), ACM Press, Portugal. pp. 137 – 144.

Fabrication, Virtual, Augmented, + Mixed Reality

Tanenbaum, T. J., Hartoonian, N., & Bryan, J. (2020). “How do I make this thing smile?”: An Inventory of Expressive Nonverbal Communication in Commercial Social Virtual Reality Platforms. Presented at CHI’20. April 25-30, 2020, Honolulu Hawai’i, USA, 13 pages

Tanenbaum, T.J., & Olivieri, V. (2020) Transforming the Creative Practices of Composers and Sound Designers with VirDAW, the Virtual Reality Digital Audio Workstation. Presented at United States Institute for Theater Technology Conference (USITT’20), April 16, 2020. 6 pages

Gupta, S. Tanenbaum, T. J., Muralikumar, M., & Maranthe, A. (2020). Investigating Roleplaying and Identity Transformation in a Virtual Reality Narrative Experience. Presented at CHI’20. April 25-30, 2020, Honolulu Hawai’i, USA, 13 pages

Tanenbaum, T. J., Tanenbaum, K., & Cowling, M. (2017) Designing Hybrid Games for Playful Fabrication: Augmentation, Accumulation, & Idleness. Presented at ACM CHI Play, 2017, October 15-18, Amsterdam, Netherlands. pp 413 – 419

Cowling, M., Tanenbaum, T. J., Birt, T. J., Tanenbaum, K. (2017) Augmenting Reality for Augmented Reality. Interactions, ACM Press, vol. 24 no 1 (January + February 2017). pp 42-45

Tanenbaum, T. J., & Smith, G. (2017) Intersections of Craft, Fabrication, and Play: Introduction. Interactions, ACM Press, vol. 24 no 1 (January + February 2017). pp 32-33

Tanenbaum, K., & Tanenbaum, T. J. (2016) Playful Fabrication: Speculative Game Designs for 3D Printers. Presented at the first joint conference of Foundations of Digital Games & Digital Games Research Association (FDG/DiGRA), 2016, August 1-6, Dundee, Scotland. 2 Pages

Tanenbaum T. J., Williams, A., Desjardins, A., and Tanenbaum, K. (2013) Democratizing Technology: Pleasure, Utility and Expressiveness in DIY and Maker Practice. Presented at CHI 2013, Paris, France. 2603 – 2612.

Games + Interactive Narrative

Gardner, D. & Tanenbaum, T. J. (2021). At the Edge: Periludic Elements in Game Studies. Game Studies Vol 21, Issue 4

Gardner, D., & Tanenbaum, T. J. (2018). Dynamic Demographics: Lessons from a Large-Scale Census of Performative Possibilities in Games. Presented at CHI’18. April 21-26, 2018, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 12 Pages

Alharthi, S., Alsaedi, O., Toups, P., Tanenbaum, T. J., & Hammer, T. J. (2018). Playing to Wait: A Taxonomy of Idle Games. Presented at CHI’18. April 21-26, 2018, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 15 Pages

Tanenbaum, T. J., Gardner, D., & Cowling, M. (2017). Chalk, Props, And Costumes: Two Exercises for Teaching Pervasive Game Design. Analog Game Studies, 4(4), ETC Press. pp 232 - 248

Tanenbaum, T. J. (2015) Hermeneutic Inquiry for Digital Games Research. The Computer Games Journal. Springer, June 2015, Vol 4, no.1, pp 59-80

Tanenbaum, T. J. (2013) – How I learned to stop worrying and love the gamer: Reframing Subversive Play in Story-Based Games. Presented at DiGRA 2013. Atlanta, GA, USA.

Bizzocchi, T. J. & Tanenbaum, T. J. (2011). Well Read: Applying Close Reading Techniques to Gameplay Experiences. In D. Davidson (Ed.), Well Played 3.0: Video Games, Value, and Meaning (pp. 262 - 290). Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA: ETC-Press.

Bizzocchi, T. J., Lin, B., & Tanenbaum, T. J. (2011). Games, Narrative, and the Design of Interface. International Journal of Art and Technology (IJART) 4(4), 460-479.

Tanenbaum, K. & Tanenbaum, T. J. (2009) Commitment to Meaning: A Reframing of Agency in Games. Presented at 8th Conference on Digital Arts and Culture (DAC). December 12-15, Irvine, USA, 9 pages.

For links and a more complete list, visit my Google Scholar Profile