  We present design guidelines for incorporating fidgeting into the virtual
world as a tool for students in online lectures. Fidgeting is associated with
increased attention and self-regulation, and has the potential to help students
focus. Currently there are no fidgets, physical or virtual, designed for
preserving attention specifically in online learning environments, and no
heuristics for designing fidgets within this domain. We identify three virtual
fidget proxies to serve as design probes for studying student experiences with
virtual fidgeting. Through a study of eight students using our virtual fidget
proxies in online lectures, we identify eight emergent themes that encompass
student experience with virtual fidgeting in lectures. Based on these themes,
we present four principles for designing domain-specific virtual fidgets for
online lectures. We identify that virtual fidgets for lectures should be
context-aware, visually appealing, easy to adopt, and physically interactive.
