Novice tangible interaction design students often find it challenging to generate input action
ideas. They usually restrict their explorations to familiar possibilities such as input actions found
in everyday devices, like press button, touch, and rotate. Doing so may lead them to potentially
ignore other input actions that may address the design problem better. To address this problem,
we designed a research instrument named IdeaBits 2.0 with three key features. First, it consists of
artifacts that enable users to experience a set of input actions, which are squeeze, stretch, bend,
fold, and pull. Second, for each of these input actions, IdeaBits 2.0 provides two tangible user
interface examples that incorporate the action. These examples are shown on the graphical user
interface of IdeaBits 2.0 using video, images, and the published paper. The objective is to help
users conceptualize the introduced input actions as a part of tangible user interfaces. And third,
IdeaBits 2.0 provides technical implementation guidance by linking to Sparkfun pages that
provide information on the sensors involved in the artifacts. The intention is to help users
generate technical implementation ideas for input actions. We evaluated IdeaBits 2.0 by conducting
an exploratory case study that involved video recorded design sessions, remote observations,
and semi-structured interviews with 12 novice tangible interaction design students individually.
We investigated how the participants used IdeaBits 2.0 to generate tangible user
interface ideas, how it supports them, and what challenges they face. We next highlight
three key findings. The artifacts enabled participants to experience input actions
by providing them with a physical medium to carry out the actions and passive haptic
feedback through physical reaction. Interacting with the artifacts for some time helped them gain
deeper insights, such as understanding the differences between some of the input
actions they initially considered to be similar. Here is a participant's quote for you to read.
Having output associated with the artifacts triggered participants' curiosity to investigate
the input-output mappings through hands-on exploration of a variety of input actions.
The artifacts facilitated exploration through versatility in their affordance and by providing
feedback through its output. Such explorations helped participants come up with variations
of the introduced input actions and discover possibilities beyond the ones introduced. For
example, these are some of the explorations with the squeeze artifact carried out by a participant,
which inspired this idea involving 'hit' as an input action. Artifacts and the tangible
user interface examples acted as inspirational stimuli and helped participants to get ideas
by opening their minds to multiple alternatives. Especially providing input action examples beyond
what participants come across in everyday devices helped them think beyond input actions they were
familiar with. However, these stimuli at times also led to design fixation by inspiring similar
ideas and conditioning participants to incorporate from IdeaBits 2.0. Design fixation occurred due
to reasons such as presenting artifacts in a functioning state skewed participants' perception
of the feasibility of input action possibilities. Here is a participants' quote for you to read.
Based on our findings and existing literature, we derived a set of design guidelines for similar
tools, such as provide a medium that supports users to get a firsthand experience of the
concerned entity. To encourage and facilitate explorations, provide mediums that incorporate
versatility, robustness, and output or feedback to the activities carried out by the users.
To minimize design fixation, prompt users to combine different possibilities. The contributions
of our work are - First, IdeaBits 2.0 as an open-source tool. Second, design and results of
an exploratory case study for evaluating IdeaBits 2.0. And third, design recommendations for tools
to aid novice tangible interaction design students in generating input action ideas.
This research will help tangible interaction design students, instructors, practitioners,
and researchers apply the learnings in tangible interaction design education and practice,
design similar tools, or conduct further research on this topic. Thank you for your time.