Bendable Screen Interaction

Recently, the foldable screen has become a new tendency in the mobile industry. With interest in this area, I have researched for some technologies and products in the relevant fields. And I feel especially interested in technology using bending as the primary interaction method, and I will share that in this article.

Following are some typical products to mention when we talk about the foldable product. In 2011, there is a product called Paper Phone made of paper with many sensors inside. And people can bend this phone for navigation. In 2013, a new product called Samsung Galaxy Round was launched. It is a phone with a curved surface.

Throughout the foldable screen history, I saw a product called Gummi. And as far as I can understand, this product launched in 2004 can be seen as the earliest flexible mobile phone.

2004 is the year when gesture interaction is not yet widespread, and people are still using buttons to operate the phone.

Gummi mainly encourages users to interact with bending gestures. Although not precisely like folding gesture, bending can be seen as one of the evolutionary processes of folding.

The bending mechanism of Gummi

This phone utilizes a relatively simple technology because of the technology limitation at that time. I did some researches and found that inside there is just the simple sensor call bending sensor. I remember I have tried it as well on the Arduino course in the university but never think of it being used to operate a system.

The interaction of a small slice

Despite being a small bendable slice, the product has made the most of its usage. As can be seen in the following picture, there are five interaction modes for this product. And user can use different interaction modes for specific interactions such as cancel, zoom in or zoom out.

But how? Let’s take a look at the following example.

An example of the map

First of all, there is a red rectangle on the screen, which is like the camera’s viewfinder.

In the background, there is a map and the users can use the hand to move the map. Then the focus of the viewfinder can be changed.

Then is the magic!

If the users want to view more details in this area, they can bend the screen to magnify the map.

And if they want to go back, all they need to do is just to make the surface flat again.

I have to say this interaction takes more efforts compared with zooming in and out with just two fingers.

Yet that might be the best option considering that gesture technology is still under development at that time.

Text input, complicated or smart?

Gummi’s function is more than I can imagine. One of Gummi’s features is text input.

How to use a bending gesture to do text input? I think this is a fascinating topic. If I got more time, I might try to think about it and try to figure out more ideas.

How Gummi achieves text input?

1.Layer

On the screen, there is a 3x3 grid which contains nine English letters. And the users can use bending gesture to switch to another letter group. The users can click to focus on a specific letter and then bend the screen to confirm the input.

2.Grid

Similar to the map zooming method. All the letters are displayed on the same layer and the users can use the gesture to move the interface. Then they can bend again to confirm the selection.

Is it worth thinking about so many approaches just to enter a letter?

My answer is yes. These approaches inspire me to rethink about how people can interact with a product with certain technology constraint.

Insight

Bending takes efforts. But is it that bad? Here are some of my understanding about its advantages.

1.Tension

When we bend an object, the tension of the surface will change. As can be shown in the following image. Visualizing change of the tension gives a more vivid feeling.

2.Elastic force

After being bent, the interface generates the elastic force.

In the following image, the rectangle can be viewed as the phone’s notification and can be bounced off.

The same pattern might work for a refresh or delete interaction.

3.Interaction at the corner

A bendable surface can be bent in different directions. The bending on the corner can generate some interaction possibilities as well. Imagine there is a floating button in the corner, we can bend the corner to display more options.

Conclusion

These are what I know so far about the bendable surface. Overall, I think it interesting to look back on the design history and think in the way people thought at that time.

I remember Naoto Fukasawa has designed a phone called Infobar A02, and the interface is designed based on Android 4.1 operation system iida 2.0, which is similar to Windows Phone 8. When you click the power button, all icons are generated from the position of the power button, just like water flows from the tap. Maybe that can be the inspiration for the future foldable screen design as well:)?