Display Button: A Marriage of GUI and PUI

Abstract

GUI (graphical user interface) output and PUI (physical user interface) input are two major concepts of user interface design for commercial products. GUIs and PUIs have been normally implemented on individual devices such as a screen and sets of buttons, respectively. However, recent researches show several cases of combining GUI and PUI into one user interface module, which can display visual information and collect user inputs simultaneously. With this combination, the expressiveness and flexibility of GUI can compensate impassive face of physical buttons, and the straight-forward and intuitive way of using PUI, like pushing a button, can remedy old tradition of GUI’s learnability and memorability issues. This study presents Display Button, a modular component combining GUI and PUI with least production cost increase, and surveys its characteristics and merits in several contexts of consumer appliances. Display Button modules were applied in forms of additional components of conventional display and independent components. In order to design user interfaces of mobile phone and digital camera with Display Button modules, pattern-oriented approach is used to ensure smoother migration from traditional user interface to novel use of Display Button. Display Button can be applied to various kinds of consumer electronics with many possible alternative combinations, and hence increase their market competency with both of better end-user experience and less production cost.