Nur Al-huda Hamdan

Grabrics: A Foldable Two-Dimensional Textile Input Controller

Textile interfaces can be ubiquitously integrated into the fabrics that already surround us. So far, existing interfaces transfer concepts, such as buttons and sliders, to the textile domain without leveraging the affordances and qualities of fabric. This paper presents Grabrics, a two-dimensional textile sensor that is manipulated by grabbing a fold and moving it between your fingers. Grabrics can be integrated invisibly into everyday clothing or into textile objects, like a living room sofa, while minimizing accidental activation. We describe the construction and the fold-based interaction technique of our Grabrics sensor. A preliminary study shows that Grabrics can be folded and manipulated from any arbitrary position, and it can detect 2D stroke gestures.

Grabbing at an angle: menu selection for fabric interfaces

This paper investigates the pinch angle as a menu selection technique for two-dimensional foldable textile controllers. Based on the principles of marking menus, the selection of a menu item is performed by grabbing a fold at a specific angle, while changing value is performed by rolling the fold between the fingers. In a first experiment we determined an upper bound for the number of different angles users can reliably grab into a piece of fabric on their forearm. Our results show that users can, without looking at it, reliably grab fabric on their forearm with an average accuracy between 30° and 45°, which would provide up to six different menu options selectable with the initial pinch. In a second experiment, we show that our textile sensor, Grabrics, can detect fold angles at 45° spacing with up to 85% accuracy. Our studies also found that user performance and workload are independent of the fabric types that were tested.

Towards Accepted Smart Interactive Textiles : The Interdisciplinary Project INTUITEX

Smart Interactive Textiles combine the warmth and omnipresence of textiles in our everyday lives with the benefits of modern information and communication technologies. The potential of innovation is not only based on technical ingenuity, but also on the consideration and embedding of peoples’ fears, requirements, desires, and wishes regarding these innovative technologies. Thus, the development of smart interactive textiles requires the expertise of various disciplines. Foremost, appropriate conductive yarns must be selected and integrated into conventional fabrics. Sensors and actuators must be embedded in textiles in a way that they could be used as a user interface. The design of these textiles should meet human needs and should enable an intuitive, easy to learn, and effective interaction. To meet these requirements, potential users should be part of the development and evaluation processes of innovative smart textiles. In this article, we present a research framework that integrates several interdisciplinary perspectives (interface design, textile technology, integration and automation, communication and human factors). We realized three functional smart textile demonstrators (curtain, chair, jacket). We report on the results of this interdisciplinary research project as well as the research questions and key findings of the individual partners. In summary, this article demonstrates that interdisciplinary cooperation, user-centered and participatory design, and iterative product development are necessary for successful innovative technologies.

Conceptual framework for surface manager on interactive tabletops

To date, most tabletop systems are designed with only a single application visible and accessible at any time, which is, in many cases, an underuse of the tabletop spacious surface, and counter-intuitive to the normal working environment of a table. Desktop window managers provide users facilities to launch and interact with concurrent applications, as well as manage their work items. However, these managers are designed for single-user systems and cannot be directly utilized in tabletops without sacrificing usability. In our research, we want to bring window manager facilities to tabletops. We approach this by first constructing a conceptual framework based on workplace theories and tabletop investigations to understand how users structure their work in these environments (see Figure 1). We will then use the resulting framework to guide our design of a sample surface manager.

Sketch&Stitch: Interactive Embroidery for E-textiles

E-Textiles are fabrics that integrate electronic circuits and components. Makers use them to create interactive clothing, furniture, and toys. However, this requires significant manual labor and skills, and using technology-centric design tools. We introduce Sketch&Stitch, an interactive embroidery system to create e-textiles using a traditional crafting approach: Users draw their art and circuit directly on fabric using colored pens. The system takes a picture of the sketch, converts it to embroidery patterns, and sends them to an embroidery machine. Alternating between sketching and stitching, users build and test their design incrementally. Sketch&Stitch features Circuitry Stickers representing circuit boards, components, and custom stitch patterns for wire crossings to insulate, and various textile touch sensors such as pushbuttons, sliders, and 2D touchpads. Circuitry Stickers serve as placeholders during design. Using computer vision, they are recognized and replaced later in the appropriate embroidery phases. We close with technical considerations and application examples.

Interactive FUrniTURE: Evaluation of Smart Interactive Textile Interfaces for Home Environments

Ubiquitous computing strives to reach the calm computing state where sensors and actuators disappear from the foreground of our surroundings into the fabric of everyday objects. Despite the great progress in embedded technology, artificial interfaces, such as remote controls and touch screens, remain the dominant media for interacting with smart everyday objects. Motivated by recent advancements in smart textile technologies, we investigate the usability and acceptance of fabric-based controllers in the smart home environment. In this article we describe the development and evaluation of three textile interfaces for controlling a motorized recliner armchair in a living room setting. The core of this contribution is the empirical study with twenty participants that contrasted the user experience of three textile-based interaction techniques to a standard remote control. Despite the slightly lower reliability of the textile interfaces, their overall acceptance was higher. The study shows that the hedonic quality and attractiveness of textile interfaces have higher impact on user acceptance compared to pragmatic qualities, such as efficiency, fluidity of interaction, and reliability. Attractiveness profits from the direct and nearly invisible integration of the interaction device into textile objects such as furniture.

Run&Tap: Investigation of On-Body Tapping for Runners

Devices like smartphones, smartwatches, and fitness trackers enable runners to control music, query fitness parameters such as heart rate and speed, or be guided by coaching apps. But while these devices are portable, interacting with them during running is difficult: they usually have small buttons or touchscreens which force the user to slow down to interact with them properly. On-body tapping is an interaction technique that allows users to trigger actions by tapping at different body locations eyes-free. This paper investigates on-body tapping as a potential input technique for runners. We conducted a user study to evaluate where and how accurately runners can tap on their body. We motion-captured participants while tapping locations on their body and running on a treadmill at different speeds. Results show that a uniform layout of five targets per arm and two targets on the abdomen achieved 96% accuracy rate. We present a set of design implications to inform the design of on-body interfaces for runners.

Gardeene! Textile Controls for the Home Environment

This work was funded in part by the German B-IT Foundation and by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as project “Intuitex” (Grant No. 16SV6264K).

CHI 2016: global, diverse, good

What can 1,000 scientists achieve when they invest one hour doing voluntary work?

Why "celebrate women in computing"?

The XRDS blog highlights a range of topics from conference coverage, to security and privacy, to CS theory. Selected blog posts, edited for print, are featured in every issue. Please visit xrds.acm.org/blog to read each post in its entirety. If you are interested in joining as a student blogger, please contact us.