Puffy: A Step-by-step Guide to Craft Bio-inspired Artifacts with Interactive Materiality

TL;DR

This paper presents Puffy, a bio-inspired interactive artifact with a cilia-like surface, and offers a step-by-step design guide for practitioners to explore interactive materiality through analysis, synthesis, and detailing.

Contribution

It introduces a practical, pictorial design process for creating bio-inspired artifacts, filling the gap between theory and practice for beginners in HCI.

Findings

Developed a recursive design approach involving analysis, synthesis, and detailing.

Created iterative prototypes demonstrating the artifact's interactive qualities.

Provided practical guidelines and recommendations for designing with interactive materiality.

Abstract

A rising number of HCI scholars have begun to use materiality as a starting point for exploring the design's potential and restrictions. Despite the theoretical flourishing, the practical design process and instruction for beginner practitioners are still in scarcity. We leveraged the pictorial format to illustrate our crafting process of Puffy, a bio-inspired artifact that features a cilia-mimetic surface expressing anthropomorphic qualities through shape changes. Our approach consists of three key activities (i.e., analysis, synthesis, and detailing) interlaced recursively throughout the journey. Using this approach, we analyzed different input sources, synthesized peers' critiques and self-reflection, and detailed the designed experience with iterative prototypes. Building on a reflective analysis of our approach, we concluded with a set of practical implications and design recommendations to inform other practitioners to initiate their investigations in interactive materiality.