Using on-body displays for extending the output of wearable devices

Abstract

In this work, we explore wearable on-body displays. These displays have the potential of extending the display space of smart watches to the user's body. Our research is motivated by wearable computing devices moving technology closer to the human. Today, smart watches offer functionalities similar to smart phones, yet at a smaller form factor. To cope with the limited display real-estate we propose to use on-body displays integrated with clothing to extend the available display space. We present a design space for on-body displays and explore users' location and visualization preferences. We also report on the design and implementation of a prototypical display system. We evaluated the prototype in a lab study with 16 participants, showing that on-body displays perform similar to current off-screen visualization techniques.