Constructing the Thermal Affective Design Space for Emotion Regulation: An Autoethnographic Research Through Design Inquiry

2026. To appear at ACM CHI 2026.

Feng Feng, Kim Halskov, Dan Bennett, Minna Pakanen & Elisa Mekler.

Temperature has strong potential to mediate emotion in a range of contexts; augmenting sensory experience and/or supporting emotion regulation. Hence, there is growing interest in leveraging thermal cues for affective technologies. At present, however, the design space for thermal technologies for emotion regulation remains underexplored and largely undefined. We construct a design space for thermal affective emotion regulation technologies, clarifying the rich, expressive nature of thermal cues as a design material. We develop this through a Research through Design (RtD) approach, grounded in an 18-month autoethnographic inquiry based on the first author's emotion regulation practice. We contribute a structured design space for thermal affective interaction, linking experience and design implementation with designerly know-how. Our work also provides insights into the generative process of developing intermediate-level knowledge, and demonstrates autoethnographic RtD as a rigorous and situated method for designing with and through affective experience.