Moon-Hwan Lee

Patina Engraver: Visualizing Activity Logs as Patina in Fashionable Trackers

Despite technological improvements in commercial activity trackers, little attention has been given to their emotional, social, or fashion-related qualities, such as their visual aesthetics and their relationship to self-expression and social connection. As an alternative integrated approach incorporating HCI, fashion, and product design, our project made use of the characteristics of patina to improve activity trackers as fashionable wearables. We developed the Patina Engraving System, which engraves patina-like patterns on an activity tracker according to a users activity logs. Using a piercing technique, the patina of activity logs has been made abstract, visually rich, gradually emerging, and historically accumulated. During the field trial, we found that the patina motivated the participants to increase exercises for engraving aesthetic patinas. A tracker with patina triggered spontaneous social interactions in face-to-face situations. The participants also cherished the trackers that held their own history. Based on the field trial, we discuss design implications for utilizing patina in designing future fashionable technologies.

Patina-inspired Personalization: Personalizing Products with Traces of Daily Use

Despite the popularization of product personalization systems, it is difficult for people to personalize a product in a way that symbolizes themselves and their daily lives. Borrowing the characteristics of patina generation, we suggest patina-inspired personalization as an alternative approach. This approach is a way of progressive personalization through transforming digital traces of product use into patina-like material traces on a product. As an exemplar, we developed Trace-Marker, a custom-built laser engraver for bicycle riders. It engraves aesthetic patterns on a bicycle bag according to a users bicycle journey. During the field trial with 10 participants for three weeks, participants used the system to add symbolic meanings, in particular their unique identities and personal stories on their bags. The permanently engraved patterns enhanced the emotional bond with the bags. Based on the field trial, we discuss implications for improving patina-inspired personalization in wider contexts.

Gleamy: An Ambient Display Lamp with a Transparency-Controllable Shade

We present Gleamy, a lamp supporting ambient information display in everyday environment by the shade with controllable transparency. Information can be displayed abstractly by static or animated patterns on the shade. A preliminary study with twelve users showed that Gleamy naturally blended in a home environment. It satisfied practicality both as an ambient display and as a lighting device. We found that representation of information by Gleamy was unobtrusive and informative. The changes of the pattern on the shade delivered information in an emotionally rich and private manner, and enhanced aesthetic value as well. In this paper, we discuss design considerations that could improve peripheral information display using the shade with changeable transparency.

Impact of digital traces on the appreciation of movie contents

Abstract Despite technologic improvements in home video systems, minimal research has been carried out on the potential to enhance the audiences reflective state and content appreciation. We explored the value of video systems that leave digital traces to support the movie-watching experience. By developing video-watching systems involving the application of a digital trace, we investigate how the movie-watching experience changed. We conducted semi-structured interviews with participants after they had experienced the systems. Our findings revealed that the digital trace became a source of deeper reflection on the storyline. Active trace logging was useful for revisiting impressive scenes and for encouraging audiences to express their thoughts. The passively generated digital trace acted as a catalyst for interpreting the storyline from a self-oriented viewpoint. We found that the digital trace might support content appreciation as a developmental process. We then discussed issues related to designing video systems with a digital trace mechanism included.

Understanding impacts of hidden interfaces on mobile phone user experience

This paper describes hidden interfaces as an important feature of touch screen based mobile phones and explores their impacts in user experience. Six sessions of focus group study were conducted to identify some patterns of how people explore and use hidden interfaces of mobile phones depending on their motivations---either passive or active. Then values of the hidden interfaces were further discussed from utilitarian (efficient control at cost of low cognitive load), emotional (engagement and attachment), and social perspectives (elatedness & sense of community). We expect these findings to contribute to understanding the impacts of hidden interfaces more systematically to be applied to design of interactive products.

Xtempo: music polaroid for printing real-time acoustic guitar performance

We present a real-time musical score printing system called Xtempo. This system supports the recording of more meaningful musical experiences with the contextual information. It interprets the music performance and instantly prints the musical score like a Polaroid camera. This allows recording of musical composition or improvised play. We applied this system to an acoustic guitar which can be augmented by experience recording. The tablature (for guitar) is also printed with information of a performers stroke action. This system shows new potential in logging meaningful, emotional and personalized musical experience.