Skin-On Interfaces: A Bio-Driven Approach for Artificial Skin Design to Cover Interactive Devices

We propose a paradigm called Skin-On interfaces, in which interactive devices have their own (artificial) skin, thus enabling new forms of input gestures for end-users (e.g. twist, scratch). Our work explores the design space of Skin-On interfaces by following a bio-driven approach: (1) from a sensory point of view, we study how to reproduce the look and feel of the human skin through three user studies; (2) from a gestural point of view, we study what kind of gestures such interfaces enable by looking at how human beings use real skin as a communication medium or in interfaces; (3) from a technical point of view, we explore and discuss different ways of fabricating interfaces that mimic human skin sensitivity and can recognize the gestures observed in the previous study; (4) we assemble the insights of our three exploratory facets to implement a series of Skin-On interfaces and also contribute by providing a toolkit that enables easy reproduction and fabrication