I've Got the Data in My Pocket! - Exploring Interaction Techniques with Everyday Objects for Cross-Device Data Transfer

People interact with a multitude of personal digital devices every day. However, transferring data between devices is still surprisingly cumbersome due to technical barriers, such as authentication or device pairing. Due to their clear affordances, physical devices offer a promising design space as mediators for natural interaction techniques. In a workshop and an elicitation study (n = 30), we investigated different interaction techniques for cross-device data transfer using everyday objects. Our results suggest that depending on the use case, extending always-available physical objects might be more beneficial than developing new artifacts. Designing effective interaction techniques requires consideration of an artifact’s physical characteristics, affordances, and situational surroundings. Participants preferred multi-functional objects which are always at hand, such as their smartphone. However, they opted for more impersonal objects in unfamiliar situations. Interaction techniques associated with objects also influenced users’ actions. We provide an overview of factors influencing intuitive interactions and we derived guidelines for user-centered development of interaction techniques with physical objects as mediators for data transfer.