Exploring a Modular Approach to Redesigning Interfaces for Physical Interactive Devices

Tools for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) hide implementation details associated with changing the position, size or shape of a widget. For example, a GUI designer can change the position of a button without explicitly reimplementing the code that determines if the button has been clicked. We seek to provide a similar experience for moving tangible widgets on physical interactive devices (PIDs). One reason that GUI design tools can hide implementation details is that widgets are modules. In this work in progress, we describe a system for leveraging modularity to hide implementation details associated with changing the position, size and shape of widgets in pid interfaces. We have used the system to design, redesign and fabricate 10 interfaces for 3 example applications. Fundamentaly, working with atoms to make pid interfaces is different than working with pixels to make GUI interfaces--but modularity in pid widgets appears to be a promising way to hide implementation details in pid interface redesign and fabrication.