Disappearing textile interface with inherent feedforwards

Abstract

Currently, interactive devices can easily disappear into a wide range of physical context due to the development of microcontrollers, sensors and actuators. However, this disappearing interaction scenario may cause confusion to the users regarding where and how to interact with it. Therefore, a research project has been conducted to investigate different inherent feedforwards for this disappearing interaction scenario in textile surfaces. A Tangible User Interface (TUI) for volume adjusting was designed, which can provide both visual and shape-changing feedforwards. This interface can be implemented in ubiquitous soft surfaces, in this demo, a textile-based Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) in the vehicle seat. The textile interface provides a both natural and enjoyable HMI concept. This report describes the theoretical background, prototype, user test and demo setup and contribution.