Visual design of physical user interfaces for NFC-based mobile interaction

Near Field Communication (NFC) can facilitate mobile interaction with everyday objects, associated digital information and ubiquitous services. Despite the simplicity of the touch-like interaction between mobile devices and tagged physical objects, most people are still unfamiliar with this physical interaction, resulting in various usability problems. In order to improve mobile interaction with NFC-tagged objects, that serve as physical user interfaces (UI), we examine various aspects of their visual design. We identify different phases of mobile interaction with tagged objects and apply a user centered design process to create and evaluate different symbols for these phases. We report on the iterative design of NFC-symbols and physical UIs using low- and high-fidelity prototyping and present the results of a user study which was carried out with an experience prototype for an advertising scenario.