FabriClick: Interweaving Pushbuttons into Fabrics Using 3D Printing and Digital Embroidery

Mechanical pushbuttons, which provide physical landmarks and clear tactile feedback, are easily accessible and highly reliable in eyes-free use. Potentially, their merits can improve the experiences of on-body or wearable HCI. However, they are not commonly adopted as a user interface of smart textiles because the physical mechanism of conventional pushbutton hardware requires further integration, which should be seamless enough to be comfortably worn. In this pictorial, we present a design exploration of the methodologies for interweaving mechanical pushbuttons into fabrics. The exploration used a frame system, which unifies the workflow of digital embroidery and 3D printing and enables the exploration of the physical design. Through the process, we investigated methods of integration and fabrication through making and presented our findings with proof-of-concept implementations. We also discussed the alternative designs and interaction methods as well as their implications to enlighten future research directions and opportunities.