Flexible display research shows what’s coming around the bend

If someone is described as being “bent out of shape,” we can usually assume they’re unhappy. If someone is asked to “bend it like Beckham,” they’ve probably just been asked to kick a soccer ball. According to a team of researchers at Carelton University, however, we don’t have nearly enough common terms to talk about the ways users will handle the flexible digital displays of the future.

In “Bending the Rules: Bend Gesture Classification for Flexible Displays” (K. Warren, J. Lo, V. Vadgama and A. Girouard), the authors point out that the next generation of technology devices will likely involve unusal forms of input. Just like touch screens have gotten users accustomed to “zooming” and “pinching” with their thumbs and fingers as a way of navigating or working with digital content, the rise of flexible displays could involve physically manipulating screens as a way of telling a tablet or bendable phone what to do. On the other hand, there’s a lot of ways to bend something. If designers want to create something intuitive, they need to figure out what people tend to do with flexible displays and classify them.

“While computers may be able to recognize even the smallest movement in a bend sensor, human abilities are not as precise,” the authors write. “To create a succinct study, we concentrated on the higher level descriptors of natural bend gestures: location, direction, size and angle.”

Ready, set, bend!

Using some sensors, a bezel and a fabricated flexible printed circuit, the Carleton University researches creased a prototype flexible display about the size of a letter. This was given to a group of just over a dozen study participants, who were asked to bend it for various uses and then comment about their preferences. As expected, some clear trends emerged.

“Participants did perform smaller bends downward than upward. We also found that many users indicated bending downward to be more awkward than upwards. Participants performed the largest bends in the top corner location, followed by side.”

What does this mean? For those designing smart flexible displays, the researchers plot several recommendations, such as mapping frequently used functions (like turning something on or off, perhaps) to the top corner. Other than expert users, the researchers also said people may not distinguish between the size and angle of a bend. Given the variability in how flexible displays could be used, they also suggest an “adaptable classification algorithm” be developed. Though the technology here holds much promise, in other words, designers may need to bend over backwards to make using them easy.