Knowledge about materials is a fundamental element in product design education. It involves learning engineering concept about the technical properties and selection tools. More important, this concerns developing a sensitivity to the sensorial and experiential qualities of materials. We propose Material Tinkering as a practical and creative approach to develop this sensitivity through experiential learning. Integrated with envisioning and abstract conceptualization, it leads to richer and more complete projects. The paper uses a case study. This case is an experimental educational activity applying the tinkering approach to self-produced materials, i.e. DIY materials. This method fosters students’ creativity and educates them to understand, evaluate, and design the experiential, expressive, and sensorial characteristics of materials, i.e. the concept of Materials Experience, Tactual Experience, and the Expressive-sensorial dimension of materials. In conclusions, we suggest strategies to facilitate Material Tinkering.

Direct interaction with cultural heritage (CH) artefacts is frequently unavailable to visitors, offering an opportunity for HCI designers to explore integrating material aspects into digitally-mediated encounters with CH artefacts. We argue that a thorough understanding of the material experiences of CH artefacts can open a novel design space, enabling engaging and meaningful interactions with digital representations. Capitalising on this potential, we present a user study where we systematically explore the material experiences of historic pop-up and movable books. Our analysis identifies five key material qualities to inspire augmentation: fold-ability, slide-ability, tear-ability, age-ability, and print-ability. Highlighting how these material qualities can inspire novel interactions with their digital representations, we present two extended-reality (XR) prototypes of a CH book. With our work, we present HCI designers with a novel approach on designing CH experiences, firmly rooted in materiality, challenging the prevalent paradigms of ‘technology-driven’ or ‘as-realistic-as-possible’ sensory experiences often found in CH-HCI.

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