OnomaCompass: A Texture Exploration Interface that Shuttles between Words and Images

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Okamura, Miki, Koyama, Shuhey, Jingjing, Li, Ochiai, Yoichi
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Okamura, Miki
Koyama, Shuhey
Jingjing, Li
Ochiai, Yoichi
author_facet Okamura, Miki
Koyama, Shuhey
Jingjing, Li
Ochiai, Yoichi
contents Humans can finely perceive material textures, yet articulating such somatic impressions in words is a cognitive bottleneck in design ideation. We present OnomaCompass, a web-based exploration system that links sound-symbolic onomatopoeia and visual texture representations to support early-stage material discovery. Instead of requiring users to craft precise prompts for generative AI, OnomaCompass provides two coordinated latent-space maps--one for texture images and one for onomatopoeic term--built from an authored dataset of invented onomatopoeia and corresponding textures generated via Stable Diffusion. Users can navigate both spaces, trigger cross-modal highlighting, curate findings in a gallery, and preview textures applied to objects via an image-editing model. The system also supports video interpolation between selected textures and re-embedding of extracted frames to form an emergent exploration loop. We conducted a within-subjects study with 11 participants comparing OnomaCompass to a prompt-based image-generation workflow using Gemini 2.5 Flash Image ("Nano Banana"). OnomaCompass significantly reduced workload (NASA-TLX overall, mental demand, effort, and frustration; p < .05) and increased hedonic user experience (UEQ), while usability (SUS) favored the baseline. Qualitative findings indicate that OnomaCompass helps users externalize vague sensory expectations and promotes serendipitous discovery, but also reveals interaction challenges in spatial navigation. Overall, leveraging sound symbolism as a lightweight cue offers a complementary approach to Kansei-driven material ideation beyond prompt-centric generation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_04915
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle OnomaCompass: A Texture Exploration Interface that Shuttles between Words and Images
Okamura, Miki
Koyama, Shuhey
Jingjing, Li
Ochiai, Yoichi
Human-Computer Interaction
Humans can finely perceive material textures, yet articulating such somatic impressions in words is a cognitive bottleneck in design ideation. We present OnomaCompass, a web-based exploration system that links sound-symbolic onomatopoeia and visual texture representations to support early-stage material discovery. Instead of requiring users to craft precise prompts for generative AI, OnomaCompass provides two coordinated latent-space maps--one for texture images and one for onomatopoeic term--built from an authored dataset of invented onomatopoeia and corresponding textures generated via Stable Diffusion. Users can navigate both spaces, trigger cross-modal highlighting, curate findings in a gallery, and preview textures applied to objects via an image-editing model. The system also supports video interpolation between selected textures and re-embedding of extracted frames to form an emergent exploration loop. We conducted a within-subjects study with 11 participants comparing OnomaCompass to a prompt-based image-generation workflow using Gemini 2.5 Flash Image ("Nano Banana"). OnomaCompass significantly reduced workload (NASA-TLX overall, mental demand, effort, and frustration; p < .05) and increased hedonic user experience (UEQ), while usability (SUS) favored the baseline. Qualitative findings indicate that OnomaCompass helps users externalize vague sensory expectations and promotes serendipitous discovery, but also reveals interaction challenges in spatial navigation. Overall, leveraging sound symbolism as a lightweight cue offers a complementary approach to Kansei-driven material ideation beyond prompt-centric generation.
title OnomaCompass: A Texture Exploration Interface that Shuttles between Words and Images
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.04915