DECO: A Design Space for Device Composition

Numerous interaction devices are designed through device composition. However, there is no conceptual support for this process and designers are left out to explore the space of combinations in an ad-hoc manner. In this paper we propose a design space for device composition, DECO, which focuses on the physical aspects of the composition. This design space is built around two main axes, namely Physical arrangement, which describes how elements are physically combined, and Physical manipulation, which describes how users manipulate each element. We first classify existing devices using our design space and then compare four of them to illustrate their similarities and differences. Using DECO, we design a new compound device: RPM2. This device is based on the combination of a regular mouse with the Roly-Poly Mouse. We describe in detail the user-centered iterative design process that leads to the final prototype. Finally we propose a set of design guidelines to assist the use of DECO for device composition.