Cycling offers significant health and environmental benefits, but safety remains a critical issue. We need better tools and design processes to develop on-bicycle user interfaces, for example, for hazard warnings, and to overcome design challenges associated with the cycling context. We present a physical computing toolkit that supports the rapid exploration and co-design of on-bicycle interfaces. Physical plug-and-play interaction modules controlled by an orchestration interface allow participants to explore different tangible and ambient interaction approaches on a budget cycling simulator. The toolkit was assessed by analysing video recordings of two group design workshops (N=8) and twelve individual design sessions (N=12). Our results show that the toolkit enabled flexible transitions between ideation and out-of-the-box thinking, prototyping, and immediate evaluation. We offer insights on how to design physical computing toolkits that offer low-cost, `good enough' simulation while allowing for free and safe exploration of on-bicycle user interfaces.
«Cycling offers significant health and environmental benefits, but safety remains a critical issue. We need better tools and design processes to develop on-bicycle user interfaces, for example, for hazard warnings, and to overcome design challenges associated with the cycling context. We present a physical computing toolkit that supports the rapid exploration and co-design of on-bicycle interfaces. Physical plug-and-play interaction modules controlled by an orchestration interface allow participa...
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