SensaBubble

A Chrono-Sensory Mid-Air Display of Sight and Smell

Abstract

SensaBubble is a chrono-sensory mid-air display system that generates scented bubbles to deliver information to the user via a number of sensory modalities. The system reliably produces single bubbles of specific sizes along a directed path. Each bubble produced by SensaBubble is filled with fog containing a scent relevant to the notification. The chrono-sensory aspect of SensaBubble means that information is presented both temporally and multimodally. Temporal information is enabled through two forms of persistence: firstly, a visual display projected onto the bubble which only endures until it bursts; secondly, a scent released upon the bursting of the bubble slowly disperses and leaves a longer-lasting perceptible trace of the event. SensaBubble can be adapted for use in a wide range of application contexts – from an ambient peripheral display for persistent alerts, to an engaging display for gaming or education.   SensaBubble has been selected to receive a SIGCHI Best of CHI Honorable Mention Award at CHI 2014.

Publications

Sue Ann Seah, Diego Martinez Plasencia, Peter Bennett, Abhijit Karnik, Vlad Otrocol, Jarrod Knibbe, Andy Cockburn, and Sriram Subramanian. SensaBubble: A Chrono-Sensory Mid-Air Display of Sight and Smell. Proceedings of ACM CHI 2014 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Toronto, Canada. 2014. [In press]

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