What Properties Should A Computer-Aided UX Design Tool for Physical Computing Have?

Abstract

Physical computing and interaction design are a combination that is active and prevalent in present-day design research and within Research through Design. However, there is a lack of tools for designing UX in physical computing. There is a need to better understand how the user experience ties together with the code used in a prototype. This paper aims to identify what properties a computer-aided tool for UX design in physical computing should have. We present the survey results based on a prototyping task, where students developed experiential blood-taking robots. Finally, we analysed the answers together with the literature to identify what central characteristics such a digital tool should have.