SoundFLEX: Designing Audio to Guide Interactions with Shape-Retaining Deformable Interfaces

Shape-retaining freely-deformable interfaces can take innumerable distinct shapes, and creating specific target configurations can be a challenge. In this paper, we investigate how audio can guide a user in this process, through the use of either musical or metaphoric sounds. In a formative user study, we found that sound encouraged action possibilities and made the affordances of the interface perceivable. We also found that adding audio as a modality along with vision and touch, made a positive contribution to guiding users' interactions with the interface.