Exploring next Generation Tangible Interfaces and Tools for Early-stage Design

Cecil K Piya, Purdue University

Abstract

With industry's increasing need for supporting creative early-stage design for product innovation, along with growing trends (e.g. Do-It-Yourself and Maker culture) that encourage individual and democratized creativity, we find a strong need for digital tools and human-computer interactions that are (a) accessible to a wider audience with varying levels of skills and (b) conducive towards quick-and-easy (but none-the-less effective) expression of design ideas. Our work is largely motivated by the inherent limitations of conventional 3D modeling systems that are mainly intended for final-stage detailed designs and require extensive training before usage. To explore such novel design tools, we leverage new and exciting interactive technologies, commonly referred to as Natural User Interfaces (NUI). While the definition of NUIs is open for interpretation, their fundamental characteristic involves the appropriateness of the context in which they are utilized and the intuitiveness of their usage. In this thesis, we explore different ways in which NUIs, particularly those with physical embodiments and tangible elements, can be adapted within the 3D design context to support fluid interactions between the human user and virtual design artifacts. Further, we also present and study tangible interactive mechanisms amenable towards 3D design with little or no training. As our broader goal, we seek to investigate different ways in which natural human behavior and ability to interact with physical objects can be directly leveraged within the next generation of digital interfaces for expressing creative design ideas. Our research goals in this thesis can be broadly classified into three distinct, but mutually dependent categories. First, we explore different NUI-based tangible modalities and interactions suitable for 3D design expression. Here, we focus on leveraging natural human capabilities, such as sketching with a pen, manipulating hand-held objects in mid-air, and perceiving existing objects in new contexts, for interacting with digital 3D design spaces. Second, we utilize such interactive mechanisms within specific early-stage design contexts such as planar shape assemblies, 3D collage building, and collaborative 3D design scenarios to showcase how they can foster design creativity. Finally, we conduct in-depth user studies to evaluate (a) the usability and efficacy of the interactions, and (b) the design tools' support towards creativity and design expression. In this thesis, we demonstrate our NUI-based interactions and design tools with real users spanning a wide range of demographics such as novice and experienced designers, engineering students, industrial designers, artists, and non-technical individuals. We also show how users can easily learn the individual design tools, and readily apply them towards expressing a variety of creative design ideas. While, we demonstrate the utility of NUI-based tools within specific design contexts, our results are a clear indication of their potential towards supporting 3D design within diverse domains. We anticipate our work to encourage further research in this area, and provide guidelines for development of NUI based design interfaces in future works.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Ramani, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Design|Computer science

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