Deformable User Interfaces (DUIs) are increasingly being proposed for new tangible and organic interaction metaphors and techniques. To design DUIs, it is necessary to understand how deforming different materials manually using different gestures affects performance and user experience. In the study reported in this paper, three DUIs made of deformable materials with different levels of stiffness were used in navigation tasks that required bending and twisting the interfaces. Discrete and continuous deformation gestures were used in each case. Results showed that the stiffness of the material and the type of gesture affected performance and user experience in complex ways, but with a pervading pattern: using discrete gestures in very short navigation distances and continuous gestures otherwise, plus using lower-stiffness materials in every case, was beneficial in terms of performance and user experience.

References

Kildal J. (2012) Interacting with Deformable User Interfaces: Effect of Material Stiffness and Type of Deformation Gesture. In: Magnusson C., Szymczak D., Brewster S. (eds) Haptic and Audio Interaction Design. HAID 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7468. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32796-4_8