Slappyfications: Towards Ubiquitous Physical and Embodied Notifications

Abstract

With emerging trends of notifying persons through ubiquitous technologies [2], such as ambient light, vibrotactile, or auditory cues, none of these technologies are truly ubiquitous and have proven to be easily missed or ignored. In this work, we propose Slappyfications, a novel way of sending unmissable embodied and ubiquitous notifications through a palm-based interface [1]. Our prototype enables the users to send three types of Slappyfications: poke, slap, and the STEAM-HAMMER. Through a Wizard-of-Oz study, we show the applicability of our system in real-world scenarios. The results reveal a promising trend, as none of the participants missed a single Slappyfication.