SwellSense, 2021-2023

Tingyu Cheng, Zhihan Zhang, Bingrui Zong, Yuhui Zhao, Zekun Chang, Ye Jun Kim, Clement Zheng, Gregory D. Abowd, HyunJoo Oh

SwellSense: Creating 2.5D interactions with micro-capsule paper, CHI 2023. DOI PDF

Core 77 Design Awards 2023: Interaction Award, Student Notable (Tingyu Cheng)

SwellSense is a fabrication technique to screen print stretchable circuits onto a special micro-capsule paper, creating localized swelling patterns with sensing capabilities. This simple technique will allow users to create a wide range of paper-based tactile interactive devices, which are mostly maintaining 2D planar form factor but can also be curved or folded into 3D interactive artifacts. We first present the design guidelines to support various tactile interaction design including basic tactile graphic geometries, patterns with directional density, or finer interactive textures with embedded sensing such as touch sensor, pressure sensor, and mechanical switch. We then provide a design editor to enable users to design more creatively using the SwellSense technique. We provide a technical evaluation and user evaluation to validate the basic performance of SwellSense. Lastly, we demonstrate several application examples and conclude with a discussion on current limitations and future work