Visual design of physical user interfaces for NFC-based mobile interaction

Abstract

Near Field Communication (NFC) can facilitate mobile interaction with everyday objects, associated digital information and ubiquitous services. Despite the simplicity of the touch-like interaction between mobile devices and tagged physical objects, most people are still unfamiliar with this physical interaction, resulting in various usability problems. In order to improve mobile interaction with NFC-tagged objects, that serve as physical user interfaces (UI), we examine various aspects of their visual design. We identify different phases of mobile interaction with tagged objects and apply a user centered design process to create and evaluate different symbols for these phases. We report on the iterative design of NFC-symbols and physical UIs using low-and high-fidelity prototyping and present the results of a user study which was carried out with an experience prototype for an advertising scenario.

A Survey of User Interaction for Spontaneous Device Association

“…Proximity-based interaction is simple and intuitive, and is already widespread in conjunction with smart cards. 2 Mobile devices such as mobile phones increasingly support NFC, but use of devices for proximate interaction is still unfamiliar [Hang et al 2010]. Another drawback of proximity is that the interaction is constrained within arm's length.…”

Transitions: A Crossmedia Interaction Relevant Aspect

“…Oliveira Neto, Roussel and Filgueiras [19] studied transitions from printed to digital media. Hang, Broll and Wiethoff [11] worked on the visual design of NFC symbols to improve interaction with NFC tags.…”

Towards interactive smart spaces

“…For instance, embedding interaction facilities in physical artefacts rises many challenges, like the invisibility dilemma, which describes the difficulty to announce to users the interaction facilities of artefacts (so that the user can interact with the object) while preserving the artefacts' functionality and outlook as much as possible [25]. Riekki et al [41] and Hang et al [19] employ visual design to advertise the services related to physical objects and to tell users that these physical objects can be interacted with in a non-ordinary way. Eagle and Pentland [16] present their research for facilitating face-to-face human interaction.…”