Designing Interaction: Electronic Art and the Autistic Experience explores the potential of electronic art to foster experiences of participation, expression, sensory regulation, and social connection for autistic adults, particularly those with Level I Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). From an interdisciplinary perspective, the book brings together studies of neurodiversity, emotion, interaction, aesthetics, and digital technologies.
The research adopts a qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive approach, combining documentary review, interviews with autistic people and specialists, and analysis of electronic artworks and projects. Rather than presenting autism as a condition to be corrected, it understands diverse sensory, cognitive, and emotional experiences as a starting point for designing more accessible, meaningful, and respectful spaces.
One of the book’s principal contributions is its model of emotional induction in electronic art, which makes it possible to analyse how resources such as light, sound, image, embodiment, interactivity, and participation may shape aesthetic experience. It also positions autistic people as active participants, interpreters, and co-creators of meaning.
Written in accessible language and grounded in academic research, this work opens a necessary dialogue among artists, designers, researchers, educators, families, and neurodivergent people. Rather than attributing therapeutic effects to art, it invites readers to recognise its potential to support self-regulation, inclusion, communication, and well-being.