Integrating Feedback into Wearable Controls

Wearable computing is a highly specialized application domain requiring the development of novel interaction technologies. This is due not only to the distracted and eyes busy scenarios that such systems target, but also due to the necessity of implementing highly wearable systems that take advantage of the affordances of cloth and clothing. This paper presents the design and development of three novel wearable input devices based on commonplace elements of clothing: zippers, cords strung with beads and fabric patches. These devices implement different forms of input (respectively, linear continuous, linear discrete and tagging) and are notable in that they combine input with output in the form of persistent physical feedback – each device is designed to physically and visually resemble the digital information it controls. This paper argues that this approach is novel in the domain of wearable computing and has the potential to significantly improve usability.