research-article

Unlocking the expressivity of point lights

Authors:

Chris Harrison,

Scott HudsonAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '12: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 1683 - 1692

https://doi.org/10.1145/2207676.2208296

Published: 05 May 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Small point lights (e.g., LEDs) are used as indicators in a wide variety of devices today, from digital watches and toasters, to washing machines and desktop computers. Although exceedingly simple in their output - varying light intensity over time - their design space can be rich. Unfortunately, a survey of contemporary uses revealed that the vocabulary of lighting expression in popular use today is small, fairly unimaginative, and generally ambiguous in meaning. In this paper, we work through a structured design process that points the way towards a much richer set of expressive forms and more effective communication for this very simple medium. In this process, we make use of five different data gathering and evaluation components to leverage the knowledge, opinions and expertise of people outside our team. Our work starts by considering what information is typically conveyed in this medium. We go on to consider potential expressive forms -- how information might be conveyed. We iteratively refine and expand these sets, concluding with ideas gathered from a panel of designers. Our final step was to make use of thousands of human judgments, gathered in a crowd-sourced fashion (265 participants), to measure the suitability of different expressive forms for conveying different information content. This results in a set of recommended light behaviors that mobile devices, such as smartphones, could readily employ.

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Cited By

Maehigashi ATsumura TYamada S(2024)Impacts of Robot Beep Timings on Trust Dynamics in Human-Robot InteractionInternational Journal of Social Robotics10.1007/s12369-024-01181-7Online publication date: 24-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-024-01181-7
Stanke DDuente TDemir KRohs M(2023)Can You Ear Me?Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/36109257:3(1-23)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610925
Löcken Avon Sawitzky TBauer JRiener A(2023)Exploring the Potential of eHMIs as Traffic Light AlternativesAdjunct Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications10.1145/3581961.3609885(99-104)Online publication date: 18-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3581961.3609885
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Index Terms

Unlocking the expressivity of point lights
1. Hardware
  1. Communication hardware, interfaces and storage
2. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '12: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

May 2012

3276 pages

ISBN:9781450310154

DOI:10.1145/2207676

General Chair:
Joseph A. Konstan
University of Minnesota
,
Program Chairs:
Ed H. Chi
Google
,
Kristina Höök
Mobile Life at KTH

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 05 May 2012

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May 5 - 10, 2012

Texas, Austin, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

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Cited By

Maehigashi ATsumura TYamada S(2024)Impacts of Robot Beep Timings on Trust Dynamics in Human-Robot InteractionInternational Journal of Social Robotics10.1007/s12369-024-01181-7Online publication date: 24-Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-024-01181-7
Stanke DDuente TDemir KRohs M(2023)Can You Ear Me?Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/36109257:3(1-23)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610925
Löcken Avon Sawitzky TBauer JRiener A(2023)Exploring the Potential of eHMIs as Traffic Light AlternativesAdjunct Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications10.1145/3581961.3609885(99-104)Online publication date: 18-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3581961.3609885
Melniczuk AVrapi E(2023)Exploring Feedback Modality Designs to Improve Young Children's Collaborative ActionsProceedings of the 25th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction10.1145/3577190.3614140(271-281)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2023
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Bacula AMercer JBerger JAdams JKnight H(2023)Integrating Robot Manufacturer Perspectives into Legible Factory Robot Light CommunicationsACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction10.1145/357073212:1(1-33)Online publication date: 15-Feb-2023
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Ginosar ECauchard J(2023)At First Light: Expressive Lights in Support of Drone-Initiated CommunicationProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581062(1-17)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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Rothermel AAbrams ADer Pütten A(2023)Feel for me! Robot’s Reactions to Abuse Influence Humans’ Empathy2023 32nd IEEE International Conference on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN)10.1109/RO-MAN57019.2023.10309616(1667-1674)Online publication date: 28-Aug-2023
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Hatano YBaba JNakanishi JYoshikawa YIshiguro H(2023)Exploring the Recommendation Expressions of Multiple Robots Towards Single-Operator-Multiple-Robots TeleoperationHuman-Computer Interaction10.1007/978-3-031-35602-5_4(46-60)Online publication date: 9-Jul-2023
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Steinhaeusser SLugrin BSakamoto DWeiss AHiatt LShiomi M(2022)Effects of Colored LEDs in Robotic Storytelling on Storytelling Experience and Robot PerceptionProceedings of the 2022 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction10.5555/3523760.3523934(1053-1058)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2022
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