Abstract
As AI is increasingly integrated into everyday products, LED expressions offer a compact and intuitive channel for communication. While LEDs are widely used as simple indicators, their expressive potential remains under explored in design research. This study aims to investigate how LEDs can be designed to convey various types of messages more expressively and communicatively. To this end, we adopted a three-step research process based on a design methodology: (1) design ideation workshop to collect possible messages and their corresponding expression, (2) creating LED expression GIF animations following the design guidelines, and (3) an online survey to evaluate the appropriateness of each LED expression-message pair. The survey results were analyzed using both mean scores and coefficient of variation (CV), which allowed us to classify the LED expressions into four categories based on interpret ability and consistency: universal & accurate, competitive & contextual, abstract & diverse, and inappropriate. Our findings show that users intuitively map specific message characteristics—such as arousal, urgency, or process—to LED design factors, such as intensity and rhythm. This highlights the potential of LED expressions as a viable communication channel for an AI product. Future research should address the limitations of the study, including the absence of physical LED testing, the exclusion of color as a design factor, and the lack of consideration of cultural diversity.
Keywords
Multimodality; LED expression; Communication; AI
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.1153
Citation
Kim, J.,and Kim, K.(2025) Designing LED Expressions in An Interactive AI Product, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.1153
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 1 - More Than Human-centered Design
Designing LED Expressions in An Interactive AI Product
As AI is increasingly integrated into everyday products, LED expressions offer a compact and intuitive channel for communication. While LEDs are widely used as simple indicators, their expressive potential remains under explored in design research. This study aims to investigate how LEDs can be designed to convey various types of messages more expressively and communicatively. To this end, we adopted a three-step research process based on a design methodology: (1) design ideation workshop to collect possible messages and their corresponding expression, (2) creating LED expression GIF animations following the design guidelines, and (3) an online survey to evaluate the appropriateness of each LED expression-message pair. The survey results were analyzed using both mean scores and coefficient of variation (CV), which allowed us to classify the LED expressions into four categories based on interpret ability and consistency: universal & accurate, competitive & contextual, abstract & diverse, and inappropriate. Our findings show that users intuitively map specific message characteristics—such as arousal, urgency, or process—to LED design factors, such as intensity and rhythm. This highlights the potential of LED expressions as a viable communication channel for an AI product. Future research should address the limitations of the study, including the absence of physical LED testing, the exclusion of color as a design factor, and the lack of consideration of cultural diversity.