Comparing Graphical and Tangible User Interfaces for a Tower Defense Game

This paper presents the design and test results of a tabletop Tangible User Interface (TUI) for a real-time strategy game. An experiment was conducted comparing the TUI and Graphical User Interface (GUI) versions of the same tower defense game application. The results show that users performed better with the GUI and found it easier to use, but reported more interest and enjoyment with the TUI. Overall, however, preference was split evenly between the two interface types. Analysis of qualitative user feedback provided further insight into these results, and based on this, suggestions are made for future research in the area of Tangible User Interfaces

TangiBoard: a toolkit to reduce the implementation burden of tangible user interfaces in education

The use of Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) as an educational technology has gained sustained interest over the years with common agreement on its innate ability to engage and intrigue students in active-learning pedagogies. Whilst encouraging results have been obtained in research, the widespread adoption of TUI architectures is still hindered by a myriad of implementation burdens imposed by current toolkits. To this end, this paper presents an innovative TUI toolkit: TangiBoard, which enables the deployment of an interactive TUI system using low-cost, and presently available educational technology. Apart from curtailing setup costs and technical expertise required for adopting TUI systems, the toolkit provides an application framework to facilitate system calibration and development integration with GUI applications. This is enabled by a robust computer vision application that tracks a contributed passive marker set providing a range of tangible interactions to TUI frameworks. The effectiveness of this toolkit was evaluated by computer systems developers with respect to alternate toolkits for TUI design. Open-source versions of the TangiBoard toolkit together with marker sets are provided online through research licens

Secure services integration and edge computing for effective beekeeping

Many of the issues that require resolution are not easy to mitigate just from the technology perspective. The ancestral learned logic of processes, the people traditions, and many other variants define inner contexts that make the adhesion and efficient use of information technologies a delicate process. The enormous geographical dispersion of the beekeeping economic activity, the mostly amateur profile of beekeepers, and the specificity in the traditional way as the activity is managed, compromises the applicability of integrative measures based on ICTE. Efficient and integrated management of a no-professionalized economic activity depends on two basic principles: i) the existence of effective tools capable of managing that activity and its synergies with other related activities, and ii) an infrastructure (technological, procedural, legal) that supports services properly profiled for any actor in that activity. This paper describes the work-in-process sBee - Smart Beekeeping, an applied research project that sought to integrate emerging technologies on the innovative management of critical issues that beekeeping needs to overcome. Electronic devices, Internet-of-things, advanced management algorithms, and innovative visualization services were explored. The global system architecture, its supporting services, and the communication infrastructure are here described. The integration of both internet-of-things and communications services, with the common beekeeping?s management tasks, levered a proposal for improving this activity to become more effective. Furthermore, an advanced technological supporting platform was created and experimented, prepared for further developments, on mitigating emergent challenges that the digitization promotes, namely the security and traceability on food and related agriculture value-chains, as well as on the predictive and intelligent perception of current and future scenarios.911A-2C18-106F | Carlos Jorge Enes Capit?o de AbreuN/

Model Assisted Creativity Sessions for the Design of Mixed Interactive Systems: a Protocol Analysis

Part 1: Long and Short Papers (Continued)International audienceTo help designers face the complexity of mixed interaction and identifying original and adapted solutions, we developed and evaluated an original approach to interaction design. This approach, called MACS, aims to combine the best elements of both a model of mixed interaction, and a collaborative and creative session. The objective is twofold: to support the exploration of the design space, and to establish a common language between participants. To assess the viability of this approach, we relied on a protocol analysis technique on the verbal recordings of two existing design situations. Results show that the model has a strong impact on the generation of ideas and that participants use the model concepts to share their thoughts during the session

ED-IT: una herramienta de autor para la creación de actividades educativas basadas en interacción tangible

La creación de aplicaciones basadas en interacción tangible (IT), en particular sobre tabletops, es un área que se encuentra en evolución. En este artículo se presenta un aporte en esta temática, ya que se describe el desarrollo de una herramienta de autor para la creación de actividades educativas basadas en interacción tangible (IT) sobre tabletops. El desarrollo se fundamenta en una investigación previa de diferentes herramientas que posibilitan la creación de aplicaciones IT, sus principales características y el análisis de sus posibilidades para el escenario educativo, considerando puntos fuertes y los puntos de vacancias. Se comienza por la presentación de los resultados de este análisis, para luego describir el desarrollo de Ed-IT (EDitor para aplicaciones educativas IT) que es la herramienta de autor diseñada por los autores y foco de este trabajo. Se describe la propuesta para llevar adelante las primeras evaluaciones de ED-IT y las líneas de trabajo futuro.Tema: Tecnología en Educación.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informátic

ED-IT: una herramienta de autor para la creación de actividades educativas basadas en interacción tangible

La creación de aplicaciones basadas en interacción tangible (IT), en particular sobre tabletops, es un área que se encuentra en evolución. En este artículo se presenta un aporte en esta temática, ya que se describe el desarrollo de una herramienta de autor para la creación de actividades educativas basadas en interacción tangible (IT) sobre tabletops. El desarrollo se fundamenta en una investigación previa de diferentes herramientas que posibilitan la creación de aplicaciones IT, sus principales características y el análisis de sus posibilidades para el escenario educativo, considerando puntos fuertes y los puntos de vacancias. Se comienza por la presentación de los resultados de este análisis, para luego describir el desarrollo de Ed-IT (EDitor para aplicaciones educativas IT) que es la herramienta de autor diseñada por los autores y foco de este trabajo. Se describe la propuesta para llevar adelante las primeras evaluaciones de ED-IT y las líneas de trabajo futuro.Tema: Tecnología en Educación.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informátic

ED-IT: una herramienta de autor para la creación de actividades educativas basadas en interacción tangible

La creación de aplicaciones basadas en interacción tangible (IT), en particular sobre tabletops, es un área que se encuentra en evolución. En este artículo se presenta un aporte en esta temática, ya que se describe el desarrollo de una herramienta de autor para la creación de actividades educativas basadas en interacción tangible (IT) sobre tabletops. El desarrollo se fundamenta en una investigación previa de diferentes herramientas que posibilitan la creación de aplicaciones IT, sus principales características y el análisis de sus posibilidades para el escenario educativo, considerando puntos fuertes y los puntos de vacancias. Se comienza por la presentación de los resultados de este análisis, para luego describir el desarrollo de Ed-IT (EDitor para aplicaciones educativas IT) que es la herramienta de autor diseñada por los autores y foco de este trabajo. Se describe la propuesta para llevar adelante las primeras evaluaciones de ED-IT y las líneas de trabajo futuro.Tema: Tecnología en Educación.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informátic

TangiBoard: a toolkit to reduce the implementation burden of tangible user interfaces in education

The use of Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) as an educational technology has gained sustained interest over the years with common agreement on its innate ability to engage and intrigue students in active-learning pedagogies. Whilst encouraging results have been obtained in research, the widespread adoption of TUI architectures is still hindered by a myriad of implementation burdens imposed by current toolkits. To this end, this paper presents an innovative TUI toolkit: TangiBoard, which enables the deployment of an interactive TUI system using low-cost, and presently available educational technology. Apart from curtailing setup costs and technical expertise required for adopting TUI systems, the toolkit provides an application framework to facilitate system calibration and development integration with GUI applications. This is enabled by a robust computer vision application that tracks a contributed passive marker set providing a range of tangible interactions to TUI frameworks. The effectiveness of this toolkit was evaluated by computer systems developers with respect to alternate toolkits for TUI design. Open-source versions of the TangiBoard toolkit together with marker sets are provided online through research licens

An MDE-based framework to support the development of Mixed Interactive Systems

International audienceIn the domain of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), recent advances in sensors, communication technologies, miniaturization and computing capabilities have led to new and advanced forms of interaction. Among them, Mixed Interactive Systems (MIS), form a class of interactive systems that comprises augmented reality, tangible interfaces and ambient computing; MIS aim to take advantage of physical and digital worlds to promote a more transparent integration of interactive systems with the user's environment. Due to the constant change of technologies and the multiplicity of these interaction forms, specific development approaches have been developed. As a result, numerous taxonomies, frameworks, API and models have emerged, each one covering a specific and limited aspect of the development of MIS. To support a coherent use of these multiple development resources and contribute to the increasing popularity of MIS, we have developed a framework based on Model-Driven Engineering. The goal is to take advantage of Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) standards, methodology and tools to support the manipulation of complementary Domain Specific Languages (DSL), to organize and link the use of different design and implementation resources, and to ensure a rationalized implementation based on design choices. In this paper, we first summarize existing uses of MDE in HCI before focusing on five major benefits MDE can provide in a MIS development context. We then detail which MDE tools and resources support these benefits and thus form the pillars of the success of an MDE-based MIS development approach. Based on this analysis, we introduce our framework, called Guide-Me, and illustrate its use through a case study. This framework includes two design models. Model transformations are also included to link one model to another; as a result the frameworks coverage extends from the earliest design step to a software component-based prototyping platform. A toolset based on Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) that supports the use of the framework is also presented. We finally assess our MDE-based development process for MIS based on the five major MDE benefits for MIS