Pinstripe: eyes-free continuous input on interactive clothing

We present Pinstripe, a textile user interface element for eyes-free, continuous value input on smart garments that uses pinching and rolling a piece of cloth between your fingers. The input granularity can be controlled in a natural way by varying the amount of cloth pinched. Pinstripe input elements physically consist of fields of parallel conductive lines sewn onto the fabric. This way, they can be invisible, and can be included across large areas of a garment. Pinstripe also addresses several problems previously identified in the placement and operation of textile UI elements on smart clothing. Two user studies evaluate ideal placement and orientation of Pinstripe elements on the users’ garments as well as acceptance and perceived ease of use of this novel textile input technique. Author Keywords smart textiles, wearable computing, eyes-free interaction, continuous input. ACM Classification Keywords H5.2 Information interfaces and presentation: User Interfaces—Haptic I/O G...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Thorsten Karrer, Moritz Wittenhagen, Leonhard Lichtschlag, Florian Heller, Jan Borchers
• Keywords: CHI 2011, Human Computer Interaction, Input Technique, Interface Element, Smart Textiles