Physical sketching tools and techniques for customized sensate surfaces

Sensate surfaces are a promising avenue for enhancing human interaction with digital systems due to their inherent intuitiveness and natural user interface. Recent technological advancements have enabled sensate surfaces to surpass the constraints of conventional touchscreens by integrating them into everyday objects, creating interactive interfaces that can detect various inputs such as touch, pressure, and gestures. This allows for more natural and intuitive control of digital systems. However, prototyping interactive surfaces that are customized to users' requirements using conventional techniques remains technically challenging due to limitations in accommodating complex geometric shapes and varying sizes. Furthermore, it is crucial to consider the context in which customized surfaces are utilized, as relocating them to fabrication labs may lead to the loss of their original design context. Additionally, prototyping high-resolution sensate surfaces presents challenges due to the complex signal processing requirements involved. This thesis investigates the design and fabrication of customized sensate surfaces that meet the diverse requirements of different users and contexts. The research aims to develop novel tools and techniques that overcome the technical limitations of current methods and enable the creation of sensate surfaces that enhance human interaction with digital systems.Sensorische Oberflächen sind aufgrund ihrer inhärenten Intuitivität und natürlichen Benutzeroberfläche ein vielversprechender Ansatz, um die menschliche Interaktionmit digitalen Systemen zu verbessern. Die jüngsten technologischen Fortschritte haben es ermöglicht, dass sensorische Oberflächen die Beschränkungen herkömmlicher Touchscreens überwinden, indem sie in Alltagsgegenstände integriert werden und interaktive Schnittstellen schaffen, die diverse Eingaben wie Berührung, Druck, oder Gesten erkennen können. Dies ermöglicht eine natürlichere und intuitivere Steuerung von digitalen Systemen. Das Prototyping interaktiver Oberflächen, die mit herkömmlichen Techniken an die Bedürfnisse der Nutzer angepasst werden, bleibt jedoch eine technische Herausforderung, da komplexe geometrische Formen und variierende Größen nur begrenzt berücksichtigt werden können. Darüber hinaus ist es von entscheidender Bedeutung, den Kontext, in dem diese individuell angepassten Oberflächen verwendet werden, zu berücksichtigen, da eine Verlagerung in Fabrikations-Laboratorien zum Verlust ihres ursprünglichen Designkontextes führen kann. Zudem stellt das Prototyping hochauflösender sensorischer Oberflächen aufgrund der komplexen Anforderungen an die Signalverarbeitung eine Herausforderung dar. Diese Arbeit erforscht dasDesign und die Fabrikation individuell angepasster sensorischer Oberflächen, die den diversen Anforderungen unterschiedlicher Nutzer und Kontexte gerecht werden. Die Forschung zielt darauf ab, neuartigeWerkzeuge und Techniken zu entwickeln, die die technischen Beschränkungen derzeitigerMethoden überwinden und die Erstellung von sensorischen Oberflächen ermöglichen, die die menschliche Interaktion mit digitalen Systemen verbessern

More Than Just a Party: How the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Boosted Participation by Young Adults

Describes an after-hours program designed to boost attendance among young adults and factors contributing to its success, including the elimination of perceptual barriers, encouragement of informal interaction, and exploration of galleries

Future directions in urban design as public policy: reassessing best practice principles for design review and development management

his paper reassesses John Punter's ‘Best Practice Principles for Design Review and Development Management’ that were published in this journal in 2007. Placing a focused lens on British and North American practice, the paper argues that design control and review has been profoundly reshaped since 2007 by three contributing factors: the challenges associated with climate change, the growing role that communities can play in local decision making, and the impacts of the global economic crisis upon public sector finances and property development. In light of these trends, the paper uses a review of recent literature and design practices to argue for a series of amendments to the best practice principles. These focus on: (1) the potential for design control and review to be more fully informed by ecological design theory and practice; (2) the need for more rigorous multi-stakeholder collaboration in the design decision-making process; and (3) the opportunity for urban designers to become more competent ‘market actors’ with the necessary abilities to confidently shape property development decisions

Arts, Health and Well-Being across the Military Continuum

Is there an active, meaningful role for the arts and creative arts therapies in addressing this vast array of critical human readiness issues across the military continuum? In general, "readiness" is the #1 issue for the military at all times. The connection of the arts to the human dimension of readiness is key. Military leaders say we need every weapon in our arsenal to meet the many challenges we face today. However, one of the most powerful tools we have in our arsenal -- the arts -- is often under-utilized and not well understood within the military and the healthcare system. The arts and creative arts therapists are -- and have been -- a part of military tradition and missions across all branches, supporting military health services, wellness, and mission readiness, including family support. For example, the War Department ordered the use of music in rehabilitation for the war wounded in World War II. In June 1945, the Department of War issued "Technical Bulletin 187: Music in Reconditioning in American Service Convalescent and General Hospitals." This bulletin was a catalyst for the growth and development of music therapy being used as a rehabilitative service for active duty service members and veterans alike during and after WWII. Although many gaps exist in our knowledge regarding the arts in military settings, what we do know to date holds great promise for powerful outcomes for our service members, veterans, their families, and the individuals who care for them. Today, a growing number of members of the public and private sectors are eager to collaborate with military leaders to help make these outcomes a reality.Nowhere was the momentum for greater collaboration more evident than in October 2011, when the first National Summit: Arts in Healing for Warriors was held at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (now referred to as Walter Reed Bethesda) and the National Intrepid Center of Excellence (NICoE). Rear Admiral Alton L. Stocks, Commander of Walter Reed Bethesda, hosted the National Summit, in partnership with a national planning group of military, government, and nonprofit leaders. The 2011 Summit marked the first time various branches of the military collaborated with civilian agencies to discuss how engaging with the arts provides opportunities to meet the key health issues our military faces -- from pre-deployment to deployment to homecoming.Building upon its success, a multi-year National Initiative for Arts & Health in the Military was established in 2012, with the advice and guidance of federal agency, military, nonprofit, and private sector partners (see Figure 2). The National Initiative for Arts & Health in the Military (National Initiative) represents an unprecedented military/civilian collaborative effort whose mission is to "advance the arts in health, healing, and healthcare for military service members, veterans, their families, and caregivers."Members of the National Initiative share a commitment to optimize health and wellness, with a deep understanding and awareness that the arts offer a unique and powerful doorway into healing in ways that many conventional medical approaches do not. The Initiative's goals include working across military, government, private, and nonprofit sectors to: 1. Advance the policy, practice, and quality use of arts and creativity as tools for health in the military; 2. Raise visibility, understanding, and support of arts and health in the military; and 3. Make the arts as tools for health available to all active duty military, medical staff, family members, and veterans

Getting In On the Act: How Arts Groups are Creating Opportunities for Active Participation

Arts participation is being redefined as people increasingly choose to engage with art in new, more active and expressive ways. This movement carries profound implications, and fresh opportunities, for the nonprofit arts sector.We are in the midst of a seismic shift in cultural production, moving from a "sit-back-and-be-told culture" to a "making-and-doing-culture." Active or participatory arts practices are emerging from the fringes of the Western cultural tradition to capture the collective imagination. Many forces have conspired to lead us to this point. The sustained economic downturn that began in 2008, rising ticket prices, the pervasiveness of social media, the roliferation of digital content and rising expectations for self-guided, on-demand, customized experiences have all contributed to a cultural environment primed for active arts practice. This shift calls for a new equilibrium in the arts ecology and a new generation of arts leaders ready to accept, integrate and celebrate all forms of cultural practice. This is, perhaps, the defining challenge of our time for artists, arts organizations and their supporters -- to embrace a more holistic view of the cultural ecology and identify new possibilities for Americans to engage with the arts.How can arts institutions adapt to this new environment?Is participatory practice contradictory to, or complementary to, a business model that relies on professional production and consumption?How can arts organizations enter this new territory without compromising their values r artistic ideals?This report aims to illuminate a growing body of practice around participatory engagement (with various illustrative case studies profiled at the end) and dispel some of the anxiety surrounding this sphere of activity

Modeling dialogue with mixed initiative in design space exploration

Exploration with a generative formalism must necessarily account for the nature of interaction between humans and the design space explorer. Established accounts of design interaction are made complicated by two propositions in Woodbury and Burrow\u27s Keynote on design space exploration. First, the emphasis on the primacy of the design space as an ordered collection of partial designs (version, alternatives, extensions). Few studies exist in the design interaction literature on working with multiple threads simultaneously. Second, the need to situate, aid, and amplify human design intentions using computational tools. Although specific research and practice tools on amplification (sketching, generation, variation) have had success, there is a lack of generic, flexible, interoperable, and extensible representation to support amplification. This paper addresses the above, working with design threads and computer-assisted design amplification through a theoretical model of dialogue based on Grice\u27s model of rational conversation. Using the concept of mixed initiative, the paper presents a visual notation for representing dialogue between designer and design space formalism through abstract examples of exploration tasks and dialogue integration.<br /

Image Retrieval with Mixed Initiative and Multimodal Feedback

How would you search for a unique, fashionable shoe that a friend wore and you want to buy, but you didn't take a picture? Existing approaches propose interactive image search as a promising venue. However, they either entrust the user with taking the initiative to provide informative feedback, or give all control to the system which determines informative questions to ask. Instead, we propose a mixed-initiative framework where both the user and system can be active participants, depending on whose initiative will be more beneficial for obtaining high-quality search results. We develop a reinforcement learning approach which dynamically decides which of three interaction opportunities to give to the user: drawing a sketch, providing free-form attribute feedback, or answering attribute-based questions. By allowing these three options, our system optimizes both the informativeness and exploration capabilities allowing faster image retrieval. We outperform three baselines on three datasets and extensive experimental settings.Comment: In submission to BMVC 201