Tangible user interfaces : past, present and future directions

In the last two decades, Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) have emerged as a new interface type that interlinks the digital and physical worlds. Drawing upon users' knowledge and skills of interaction with the real non-digital world, TUIs show a potential to enhance the way in which people interact with and leverage digital information. However, TUI research is still in its infancy and extensive research is required in or- der to fully understand the implications of tangible user interfaces, to develop technologies that further bridge the digital and the physical, and to guide TUI design with empirical knowledge. This paper examines the existing body of work on Tangible User In- terfaces. We start by sketching the history of tangible user interfaces, examining the intellectual origins of this field. We then present TUIs in a broader context, survey application domains, and review frame- works and taxonomies. We also discuss conceptual foundations of TUIs including perspectives from cognitive sciences, phycology, and philoso- phy. Methods and technologies for designing, building, and evaluating TUIs are also addressed. Finally, we discuss the strengths and limita- tions of TUIs and chart directions for future research

ISAR: Ein Autorensystem für Interaktive Tische

Developing augmented reality systems involves several challenges, that prevent end users and experts from non-technical domains, such as education, to experiment with this technology. In this research we introduce ISAR, an authoring system for augmented reality tabletops targeting users from non-technical domains. ISAR allows non-technical users to create their own interactive tabletop applications and experiment with the use of this technology in domains such as educations, industrial training, and medical rehabilitation.Die Entwicklung von Augmented-Reality-Systemen ist mit mehreren Herausforderungen verbunden, die Endbenutzer und Experten aus nicht-technischen Bereichen, wie z.B. dem Bildungswesen, daran hindern, mit dieser Technologie zu experimentieren. In dieser Forschung stellen wir ISAR vor, ein Autorensystem für Augmented-Reality-Tabletops, das sich an Benutzer aus nicht-technischen Bereichen richtet. ISAR ermöglicht es nicht-technischen Anwendern, ihre eigenen interaktiven Tabletop-Anwendungen zu erstellen und mit dem Einsatz dieser Technologie in Bereichen wie Bildung, industrieller Ausbildung und medizinischer Rehabilitation zu experimentieren

Designing Hybrid Interactions through an Understanding of the Affordances of Physical and Digital Technologies

Two recent technological advances have extended the diversity of domains and social contexts of Human-Computer Interaction: the embedding of computing capabilities into physical hand-held objects, and the emergence of large interactive surfaces, such as tabletops and wall boards. Both interactive surfaces and small computational devices usually allow for direct and space-multiplex input, i.e., for the spatial coincidence of physical action and digital output, in multiple points simultaneously. Such a powerful combination opens novel opportunities for the design of what are considered as hybrid interactions in this work. This thesis explores the affordances of physical interaction as resources for interface design of such hybrid interactions. The hybrid systems that are elaborated in this work are envisioned to support specific social and physical contexts, such as collaborative cooking in a domestic kitchen, or collaborative creativity in a design process. In particular, different aspects of physicality characteristic of those specific domains are explored, with the aim of promoting skill transfer across domains. irst, different approaches to the design of space-multiplex, function-specific interfaces are considered and investigated. Such design approaches build on related work on Graspable User Interfaces and extend the design space to direct touch interfaces such as touch-sensitive surfaces, in different sizes and orientations (i.e., tablets, interactive tabletops, and walls). These approaches are instantiated in the design of several experience prototypes: These are evaluated in different settings to assess the contextual implications of integrating aspects of physicality in the design of the interface. Such implications are observed both at the pragmatic level of interaction (i.e., patterns of users' behaviors on first contact with the interface), as well as on user' subjective response. The results indicate that the context of interaction affects the perception of the affordances of the system, and that some qualities of physicality such as the 3D space of manipulation and relative haptic feedback can affect the feeling of engagement and control. Building on these findings, two controlled studies are conducted to observe more systematically the implications of integrating some of the qualities of physical interaction into the design of hybrid ones. The results indicate that, despite the fact that several aspects of physical interaction are mimicked in the interface, the interaction with digital media is quite different and seems to reveal existing mental models and expectations resulting from previous experience with the WIMP paradigm on the desktop PC

Demonstration of FoodFab: Creating Food Perceptual Illusions using Food 3D Printing

Food 3D printing enables the creation of customized food structures based on a person's individual needs. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of food 3D printing to create perceptual illusions for controlling the level of perceived satiety given a defined amount of calories. We present FoodFab, a system that allows users to control their food intake through modifying a food's internal structure via two 3D printing parameters: infill pattern and infill density. In two experiments with a total of 30 participants, we studied the effect of these parameters on users' chewing time that is known to affect people's feeling of satiety. Our results show that we can indeed modify the chewing time by varying infill pattern and density, and thus control perceived satiety. Based on the results, we propose two computational models and integrate them into a user interface that simplifies the creation of personalized food structures

Proceedings of the 3rd IUI Workshop on Interacting with Smart Objects

These are the Proceedings of the 3rd IUI Workshop on Interacting with Smart Objects. Objects that we use in our everyday life are expanding their restricted interaction capabilities and provide functionalities that go far beyond their original functionality. They feature computing capabilities and are thus able to capture information, process and store it and interact with their environments, turning them into smart objects

A Mixed Reality Approach to 3D Interactive Prototyping for Participatory Design of Ambient Intelligence

Ambient Intelligence (AmI in short) is a multi-disciplinary approach aimed at enriching physical environments with a network of distributed devices in order to support humans in achieving their everyday goals. However, in current research and development, AmI is still largely considered within the engineering domain bearing undeveloped relationship with architecture. The fact that architecture design substantially aims to address the requirements of supporting people in carrying out their everyday life activities, tasks and practices with spatial strategies. These are common to the AmI’s objectives and purposes, and we aim at considering the possibilities or even necessities of investigating the potential design approach accessible to an architectural context. For end users, AmI is a new type of service. Designing and evaluating the AmI experience before resources are spent on designing the processes and technology needed to eventually run the service can save large amounts of time and money. Therefore, it is essential to create an environment in which designers can involve real people in trying out the service design proposals as early as possible in the design process. Existing cases related to stakeholder engaged design of AmI have primarily focused on engineering implementation and generally only present final outcome to stakeholders for user evaluation. Researchers have been able to build AmI prototypes for design communication. However, most of these prototypes are typically built without the involvement of stakeholders and architects in their conceptual design stage. Using concepts solely designed by engineers may not be user centric and even contain safety risks. The key research question of this thesis is: “How can Ambient Intelligence be designed through a participatory process that involves stakeholders and prospective users?" The thesis consists of the following five components: 1) Identification of a novel participatory design process for modelling AmI scenarios; 2) Identification of the requirements to support prototyping of AmI design, resulting in a conceptual framework that both "lowers the floor" (i.e. making it easier for designers to build the AmI prototypes) and "raises the ceiling" (i.e. increasing the ability of stakeholders and end users to participate in the design process deeply); i 3) Prototyping an experimental Mixed Reality Modelling (MRM in short) platform to facilitate the participatory design of AmI that supports the requirements, design process, and scenarios prototyping; 4) Case study of applying MRM platform to participatory design of a Smart Laser Cutting Workshop(LCW in short) which used to evaluate the proposed MRM based AmI design approach. The result of the research shows that the MRM based participatory design approach is able to support the design of AmI effectively

Exploring human-object interaction through force vector measurement

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2019Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (pages 101-107).I introduce SCALE, a project aiming to further understand Human-Object Interaction through the real-time analysis of force vector signals, which I have defined as "Force-based Interaction" in this thesis. Force conveys fundamental information in Force-based Interaction, including force intensity, its direction, and object weight - information otherwise difficult to be accessed or inferred from other sensing modalities. To explore the design space of force-based interaction, I have developed the SCALE toolkit, which is composed of modularized 3d-axis force sensors and application APIs. In collaboration with big industry companies, this system has been applied to a variety of application domains and settings, including a retail store, a smart home and a farmers market. In this thesis, I have proposed a base system SCALE, and two additional advanced projects titled KI/OSK and DepthTouch, which build upon the SCALE project.by Takatoshi Yoshida.S.M.S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Science