MorePhone: a study of actuated shape deformations for flexible thin-film smartphone notifications

We present MorePhone, an actuated flexible smartphone with a thin-film E Ink display. MorePhone uses shape memory alloys to actuate the entire surface of the display as well as individual corners. We conducted a participatory study to determine how users associate urgency and notification type with full screen, 1 corner, 2 corner and 3 corner actuations of the smartphone. Results suggest that with the current prototype, actuated shape notifications are useful for visual feedback. Urgent notifications such as alarms and voice calls were best matched with actuation of the entire display surface, while less urgent notifications, such as software notifications were best matched to individual corner bends. While different corner actuations resulted in significantly different matches between notification types, medium urgency notification types were treated as similar, and best matched to a single corner bend. A follow-up study suggested that users prefer to dedicate each corner to a specific type of notification. Users would like to personalize the assignment of corners to notification type. Animation of shape actuation significantly increased the perceived urgency of any of the presented shapes.

[1]  Peter Ljungstrand,et al.  Subtle and Public Notification Cues for Mobile Devices , 2001, UbiComp.

[2]  Xu Jia,et al.  How users manipulate deformable displays as input devices , 2010, CHI.

[3]  Fabian Hemmert,et al.  Living interfaces: the thrifty faucet , 2009, TEI.

[4]  Fabian Hemmert,et al.  Dynamic knobs: shape change as a means of interaction on a mobile phone , 2008, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[5]  Nikolaus F. Troje,et al.  Paper windows: interaction techniques for digital paper , 2005, CHI.

[6]  Sriram Subramanian,et al.  Tilt displays: designing display surfaces with multi-axis tilting and actuation , 2012, Mobile HCI.

[7]  D. Scott McCrickard,et al.  Attuning notification design to user goals and attention costs , 2003, Commun. ACM.

[8]  Jie Qi,et al.  Animating paper using shape memory alloys , 2012, CHI.

[9]  Roel Vertegaal,et al.  PaperPhone: understanding the use of bend gestures in mobile devices with flexible electronic paper displays , 2011, CHI.

[10]  Susanna Paasovaara,et al.  Kinetic device: designing interactions with a deformable mobile interface , 2012, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[11]  Woohun Lee,et al.  Shade Pixel , 2008, SIGGRAPH '08.

[12]  Ivan Poupyrev,et al.  Gummi: a bendable computer , 2004, CHI '04.

[13]  Lorna M. Brown,et al.  Multidimensional tactons for non-visual information presentation in mobile devices , 2006, Mobile HCI.

[14]  Fabian Hemmert,et al.  Shape-changing mobiles: tapering in one-dimensional deformational displays in mobile phones , 2010, TEI '10.

[15]  Hiroshi Ishii,et al.  Relief: a scalable actuated shape display , 2010, TEI '10.

[16]  Alireza Sahami Shirazi,et al.  Rich Tactile Output on Mobile Devices , 2008, AmI.

[17]  Jamie Zigelbaum,et al.  Shape-changing interfaces , 2011, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

[18]  Jun Rekimoto,et al.  Lumen: interactive visual and shape display for calm computing , 2004, SIGGRAPH '04.

[19]  Sheng Kai Tang,et al.  Adaptive mouse: a deformable computer mouse achieving form-function synchronization , 2010, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[20]  Meredith Ringel Morris,et al.  Understanding users' preferences for surface gestures , 2010, Graphics Interface.

[21]  Rich Ling.  One can talk about common manners!': the use of mobile telephones in inappropriate situations , 1996 .

[22]  Jeffrey S. Shell,et al.  Interacting with groups of computers , 2003, Commun. ACM.

[23]  Hiroshi Ishii,et al.  Radical atoms: beyond tangible bits, toward transformable materials , 2012, INTR.

[24]  Hiroshi Ishii,et al.  Surflex: a programmable surface for the design of tangible interfaces , 2008, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[25]  Majken Kirkegaard Rasmussen,et al.  Shape-changing interfaces: a review of the design space and open research questions , 2012, CHI.