PickCells

A Physically Reconfigurable Cell-composed Touchscreen

Touchscreens are the predominant medium for interactions with digital services; however, their current fixed form factor narrows the scope for rich physical interactions by limiting interaction possibilities to a single, planar surface. In this paper we introduce the concept of PickCells, a fully reconfigurable device concept composed of cells, that breaks the mould of rigid screens and explores a modular system that affords rich sets of tangible interactions and novel acrossdevice relationships. Through a series of co-design activities – involving HCI experts and potential end-users of such systems – we synthesised a design space aimed at inspiring future research, giving researchers and designers a framework in which to explore modular screen interactions. The design space we propose unifies existing works on modular touch surfaces under a general framework and broadens horizons by opening up unexplored spaces providing new interaction possibilities. In this paper, we present the PickCells concept, a design space of modular touch surfaces, and propose a toolkit for quick scenario prototyping. (Goguey et al., 2019)

Project Outcomes

  1. PickCells: A Physically Reconfigurable Cell-composed Touchscreen
    Goguey, Alix, Steer, Cameron, Lucero, Andrés, Nigay, Laurence, Sahoo, Deepak, Coutrix, Céline, Roudaut, Anne, Subramanian, Sriram, Tokuda, Yutaka, Neate, Timothy, Pearson, Jennifer, Robinson, Simon, and Jones, Matt
    In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings 2019