Understanding Affordance, System State, and Feedback in Shape-Changing Buttons
summary
Study tests 15 participants with 13 shape-changing buttons (10 active, 3 baselines) built with motorized faders and pneumatic actuation, Arduino sensing and conductive fabric. Findings: affordances are hard to convey — some movements read as errors; button position plus vibration gives the clearest state cue; linear transition animation works better than bouncy decays for state-change feedback. Feed-forward gestures often signal processing, not invitation, and users try to stop moving controls.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Introduction to study
- 1:11Previous research on shape-change
- 3:19Why shape-changing buttons
- 4:24Button design and implementation
- 6:32Button types and their functions
- 9:08User study methodology
- 11:22Key findings on affordance
- 12:34Feed-forward and feedback results
- 13:58Implications for shape-change design
- 15:23User interaction with motion
- 16:08Conclusion and Q&A
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