Sketching-in-Light: Enabling Hybrid Prototyping of Low-Resolution Lighting Displays

Low-resolution lighting displays are commonplace in internet-of-things devices, wearable products and embedded interfaces. However, prototyping such displays is challenging and cumbersome as methods, specific domain knowledge and skills are only available to experts. In this paper we present a novel toolkit to assist with designing and evaluating the characteristics of low-resolution lighting displays as well as content variations using different materials. We describe the components of the toolkit, which include a tablet, a custom-built app and low-cost prototyping materials, and its use within the context of a design study. The toolkit can easily be replicated and adopted by others working in this domain to prototype low-resolution lighting displays without requiring any previous expertise in hardware prototyping.