TY - GEN

T1 - Digital-is-Physical

T2 - How Functional Fabrication Disrupts Ubicomp Design Principles

AU - Fraser, Mike

AU - Liu, Jingqi

AU - Shapiro, Jenna

AU - Taylor, Joshua

AU - Everitt, Aluna

N1 - © ACM, 2019. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in HTTF 2019 - Proceedings of the Halfway to the Future Symposium 2019 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/3363384.3363472

PY - 2019/11/19

Y1 - 2019/11/19

N2 - Ubiquitous computing has long explored design through the conceptual separation of digital and physical materials. We describe how the emergence of the fabrication community in HCI will challenge these conceptual principles. The idea of digital material in ubicomp ‘hides’ lower level abstractions such as physical architectures and materials from designers. As new fabrication techniques make these abstractions accessible to makers, physical materials are being used to encode digital functionality. Form (traditionally physical) and function (traditionally digital) can be mutually expressed within material design. We outline how emerging printed electronics techniques will enable functional fabrication, current limitations and opportunities for end-user fabrication of functional devices, and implications for new principles that emphasise combined physical design of form and function.

AB - Ubiquitous computing has long explored design through the conceptual separation of digital and physical materials. We describe how the emergence of the fabrication community in HCI will challenge these conceptual principles. The idea of digital material in ubicomp ‘hides’ lower level abstractions such as physical architectures and materials from designers. As new fabrication techniques make these abstractions accessible to makers, physical materials are being used to encode digital functionality. Form (traditionally physical) and function (traditionally digital) can be mutually expressed within material design. We outline how emerging printed electronics techniques will enable functional fabrication, current limitations and opportunities for end-user fabrication of functional devices, and implications for new principles that emphasise combined physical design of form and function.

U2 - 10.1145/3363384.3363472

DO - 10.1145/3363384.3363472

M3 - Conference contribution/Paper

BT - HTTF 2019 - Proceedings of the Halfway to the Future Symposium 2019

PB - ACM

CY - New York

ER -