InfoPlant: Multimodal augmentation of plants for enhanced human-computer interaction

In this work, we present and evaluate a novel ambient information display that is designed to provide unobtrusive yet engaging feedback. The basis of this display is a natural, living plant, which is augmented in several ways to enable it to indicate information in various different ways. We describe the design and the construction of the InfoPlant, discuss its different modalities and present two demonstrator systems, including a novel eco-feedback display. A subsequent study showed that the InfoPlant was indeed perceived as unobtrusive by the large majority of participants and that it was easily accepted as a possible new entity in a living-room context. Also, the provided feedback was assessed as generally very helpful and that it would make users aware of their resource consumption and could have an influence on their consumption behavior.