Project Jacquard

Summary

Despite astonishing advances in computing power, the way we interact with digital technology has remained oddly static — dominated by keyboards, screens, and swipes. Project Jacquard proposes a new direction: what if the interface wasn’t something you held, but something you wore, leaned on, or sat down in? By weaving interactivity directly into textiles, Jacquard transforms fabric itself into a digital input surface — without sacrificing its look, feel, or function as fabric.

The technical breakthrough lies in a new class of conductive yarns: metallic filaments wrapped in familiar fibers like cotton or polyester. These yarns can be dyed, washed, cut, and sewn like any other textile, and — crucially — woven using existing industrial looms. This makes it possible to integrate multitouch sensing into garments and upholstery at manufacturing scale. Interactive zones can be subtle or sculptural, visible or invisible, depending on the context and design goals.

But Jacquard is more than a new material — it’s a different way of thinking about computing. Instead of adding devices to the world, it suggests making the world computational. A sleeve can skip songs. A sofa arm can dim the lights. And a jacket can still be a jacket — even as it quietly connects to your digital life. The goal isn’t to add more gadgets, but to make the objects we already use more responsive, more useful, and more attuned to human gesture and context.

Computers have become truly incredible. We are walking around with supercomputers in our pocket. How amazing is that? So it is disappointing that the way we use computers, the way we interact with them, hasn't really changed in the last 50 years. We still use a mouse and keyboards. We're clicking on screens and buttons. Mobile phones are the same. We're just using fingers instead of a mouse. So is that it? Is that what the future looks like? We're going to be stuck in the screens with our faces not seeing the world around us? That's not the future I imagine, or the future I'm attracted to. What I've been always interested in is things, physical things we use every day, like things on this table that the family doesn't pay attention to. Things tell our story. They tell who we are.They tell a lot about us. Ivan Poupyrev

Key concepts

• Interactive textiles at industrial scale Jacquard's core invention is a conductive yarn that looks and behaves like ordinary thread — soft, washable, dyeable — but quietly carries electricity. The result is fabric that feels familiar but knows when it’s being tapped, swiped, or squeezed. Interactivity becomes just another property of the material — like stretch, weight, or sheen.
• Everything around you can become a computer When sensing is woven into the things we already wear or touch — sleeves, sofas, bags — interaction doesn’t require screens or buttons. A jacket can skip tracks. An armrest can turn down the lights. The boundary between object and interface begins to dissolve.
• Objects as ambient interfaces The goal isn’t to add more devices to your life. It’s to let the things you already use do more, quietly. You don’t have to think about the interface — it’s just there, folded into the surface of daily life, responding when needed, invisible when not. Technology fades into the background, where it belongs.
• Distributed creatorship Jacquard isn’t just a platform for interactivity — it’s a platform for others to make interactive things. Tailors, textile designers, upholsterers can now build with digital materials — without learning to code or solder. The tools adapt to their practices, not the other way around.
• No more default interfaces Not every object needs a screen. Each thing — shoe, sleeve, sofa — can offer its own native way to interact, shaped by its form and context. When the world itself becomes responsive, we don’t need one-size-fits-all interfaces anymore. Interaction gets quieter, smarter, and more specific.

Project Jacquard offers a compelling vision of interaction that’s material-first: smart textiles that blend seamlessly into the things we already use, inviting a more humane and less intrusive relationship with our digital tools.

This idea was originally published by Ivan Poupyrev et al. in the paper Project Jacquard: Interactive Digital Textiles at Scale, presented at the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, and later explored in his TED talk Everything around you can become a computer.