Wizard of Props

Integrating Physical Props and VR for Interactive Design

Designers of physically interactive systems (e.g. architects, furniture designers, stage designers, and tangible device designers) employ a collection of design methods in their workflow. However, a dichotomy can be observed between the tangible and digital method, as constructing an elaborated physical prototype is usually time-consuming and costly, while interacting with digital models through desktop or Virtual Reality (VR) lacks the embodiment of the actual product. In this paper, we propose a hybrid design system called Wizard of Props (WoP) that integrates full-scale physical props with VR visualization to support the interactive design process. Our formative study (N=8), where participants designed an interactive door, compares WoP with the conventional design workflow with hand sketching and a 3D design software. Our observations indicate that WoP workflow fostered novel insights through enhancing spatial awareness, immersion, and tactile feedback, though its relationship with the conventional counterpart should be categorized as a complement rather than a replacement. We conclude our paper by discussing WoP's potential implications in the general interactive design space.

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