SKIRIM: Self-actuated Kinetic Interaction with Rich Interactive Materials

在智能家居之前，家里唯一会突然自动移动的东西就是烤面包机。今天，智能百叶窗自动关闭，洗碗机打开门。然而，这些形状的改变是基于技术考虑而设计的，通常与家庭环境不同。取而代之的是，SKIRIM探索了柔软的变形材料如何创造出有效而不引人注目的用户界面，自然地融入日常家庭。因此，SKIRIM采取了下一步融合家庭中的数字和物理环境，从被动交互的日常表面转移到柔软的、主动改变形状的界面，动态地改变它们的物理形式。变形材料基本上是可用的，但交互技术、对人体影响的模型、设计工具、制造流程和UI设计指南仍然严重缺乏--特别是在柔软的变形SKIRIM界面中，因为它们适合家庭环境，所以我们将重点放在这一界面上。为了实现这一目标，我们研究了此类界面在哪些智能家居场景中有意义，开发了SKIRIM界面参数(如变化速度)对用户影响的预测模型，探索了新的数字制造方法，并为专业人士和最终用户设计和定制SKIRIM界面提供了概念化、原型和评估工具。因此，我们将基础研究方法与通过设计进行研究以及现代人机界面以用户为中心的方法相结合。我们的工作包旨在深度整合我们三个实验室的工作。因此，每个WP都展示了类似的研究驱动的方法论方法，但重点关注SKIRIM界面越来越复杂的挑战，从它们各自的构建块，到将这些块组合成用户界面，再到将它们与国内外的真实世界材料合并。沿着这条道路，我们的重点从专业人士转移到最终用户，从实验室转移到现实世界的研究。SKIRIM在关键方面为SPP做出了贡献：其界面具有真正融入家庭环境的潜力；通过改变形状，它们可以扩展到家庭以外的不同用户、任务和环境；它们实现了免眼使用，这是智能家居的关键问题；对SKIRIM的研究是及时的，因为它解决了将软形状变化从材料属性转变为可扩展交互范例的巨大挑战。这项建议的三个PI都有非常强大的人机界面背景，总共有20,000多条引文。他们目前是SPP 2199 Rime项目的合作绩效指标。他们的经验理想地相辅相成，Pi Steimle专注于材料和制造，Pi Borcher专注于交互技术、设计工具和基于原型的实证研究，PiBoll专注于智能家居环境、多模式界面设计、参与式设计和验收研究。

Before the smart home, the only thing at home that would suddenly move by itself was the toaster. Today, smart blinds close themselves, and dishwashers open their doors. These kinds of shape change, however, are designed based on technical considerations, and often alien to the home environment. Instead, SKIRIM explores how soft shape-changing materials can create effective, yet unobtrusive user interfaces that blend naturally into the everyday home. SKIRIM thus takes the next step of blending digital and physical environments in the home, moving from passive interactive everyday surfaces to soft, actively shape-changing interfaces that dynamically alter their physical form. Shape-changing materials are fundamentally available, but interaction techniques, models of their effect on humans, design tools, fabrication processes, and UI design guidelines are still severely lacking—especially in soft shape-changing SKIRIM interfaces, which we focus on because of their fit to the home environment. To achieve this, we study in what smart home scenarios such interfaces make sense, develop predictive models of the effect of SKIRIM interface parameters (like speed of change) on users, explore new digital fabrication approaches, and conceptualize, prototype, and evaluate tools for professionals and end users designing and customizing SKIRIM interfaces. We thus combine fundamental research methods with research through design and the user-centered approach of modern HCI. Our work packages are designed to deeply integrate the work from our three labs. Therefore, each WP exhibits a similar research-driven methodological approach, but focusing on more and more complex challenges of SKIRIM interfaces, from their individual building blocks, to combining blocks into UIs, to merging them with real-world materials at home and beyond. Along this path, our focus shifts from professionals to end users, and from lab to real-world studies. SKIRIM contributes to the SPP in key ways: Its interfaces have the potential to truly blend into home environments; by changing shape they can scale to different users, tasks, and environments beyond the home; they enable eyes-free use, a key issue in the smart home; and research into SKIRIM is timely, because it tackles grand challenges of turning soft shape change from a material property into a scalable interaction paradigm. All three PIs of this proposal have an exceptionally strong background in HCI, with over 20,000 combined citations. They are currently Co-PIs on the SPP 2199 RIME project. Their experience complements each other ideally, with PI Steimle focusing on materials and fabrication, PI Borchers on interaction techniques, design tools, and prototype-based empirical studies, and PI Boll on smart home environments, multimodal interface design, participatory design, and acceptance studies.