“New Conductive Ink Allows Circuit Prototyping With A Pen”

As HCI professionals, we depend on our ability to create prototypes that help us to design better user experiences. In this case, engineers now have the new ability to use a specialized ink pen to help them make speedy and less costly prototypes. Previous ink-based circuit construction was typically done using inkjet printers or airbrushing, so removing the extra hardware from the process is a huge step forward. The team has some news for those people that think the writable ink won’t hold up in the long run. The ink is surprisingly quite resilient to physical manipulations, and they found that it took folding the paper substrate several thousand times before their ink pathways started to fail (Nathan, M., 2011). This can be a really be help in user-centered design approaches because this ink can conduct electricity like the copper on circuit boards.

This kind of application can help designers and engineers to work closer together in mobile environments to help create quicker and faster solutions in designing hardware and other technological devices.

http://hackaday.com/2011/06/30/new-conductive-ink-allows-circuit-prototyping-with-a-pen-and-paper/