Flippo the Robo-Shoe-Fly: A Foot Dwelling Social Wearable Companion

Here we present Flippo: A social wearable creature prototype. This design is meant to support people to take breaks away from their desks and move, as well as to socialize with others by caring for their creatures. Flippo takes the shape of a soft and fuzzy bug-like creature. It lives on people's shoes and occasionally nudges them when it needs to move and have social interaction with another creature from its species. It does this by making sounds and visual effects and requires that the wearers coordinate shaking their feet and helping the creatures face each other. If Flippo is satisfied with the interaction it displays a light animation and plays 'happy' tunes, and if not it nudges the wearer again. We ran a field study with 13 participants, preliminary results show the potential of the design to encourage and facilitate co-located social interaction.