Designing tangible magnetic appcessories

Abstract

Tangible interaction allows the control of digital information through physical artifacts - virtual data is tied to real-world objects. Sensing and display technologies that enable this kind of functionality are typically complex. This represents a barrier to entry for researchers and also restricts where these interaction techniques can be deployed. Addressing these limitations, recent work has explored how the touch screens on mobile devices can be used as sensing and display platforms for tangible interfaces. This paper extends this work by exploring how magnets can be employed to achieve similar ends. To achieve this, it describes the design and construction of eight magnetic appcessories. These are cheap, robust physical interfaces that leverage magnets (and the magnetic sensing built into mobile devices) to support reliable and expressive tangible interactions with digital content.