Serious interface design for dental health: Wiimote-based tangible interaction for school children

This paper describes a camera-based approach towards creating a tangible interface for serious games. We introduce our game for dental health targeted at school children which implements the Nintendo WiiMote as infrared camera. Paired with a gesture-recognition system, this combination allows us to apply real-world items as input devices. Thereby, the game tries to address different aspects of dental hygiene along with the improvement of children's motor skills. In our focus group test, we found that tangible interfaces offer great potential for educational purposes and can be used to engage kids in a playful learning process by addressing their childlike curiosity and fostering implicit learning

EyeRing: A Finger-Worn Input Device for Seamless Interactions with Our Surroundings

Finger-worn interfaces remain a vastly unexplored space for user interfaces, despite the fact that our fingers and hands are naturally used for referencing and interacting with the environment. In this paper we present design guidelines and implementation of a finger-worn I/O device, the EyeRing, which leverages the universal and natural gesture of pointing. We present use cases of EyeRing for both visually impaired and sighted people. We discuss initial reactions from visually impaired users which suggest that EyeRing may indeed offer a more seamless solution for dealing with their immediate surroundings than the solutions they currently use. We also report on a user study that demonstrates how EyeRing reduces effort and disruption to a sighted user. We conclude that this highly promising form factor offers both audiences enhanced, seamless interaction with information related to objects in the environment.Singapore University of Technology and Design. International Design Center (IDC grant IDG31100104A)Singapore University of Technology and Design. International Design Center (IDC grant IDD41100102A

Visual Enhancement for Sports Entertainment by Vision-Based Augmented Reality

This paper presents visually enhanced sports entertainment applications: AR Baseball Presentation System and Interactive AR Bowling System. We utilize vision-based augmented reality for getting immersive feeling. First application is an observation system of a virtual baseball game on the tabletop. 3D virtual players are playing a game on a real baseball field model, so that users can observe the game from favorite view points through a handheld monitor with a web camera. Second application is a bowling system which allows users to roll a real ball down a real bowling lane model on the tabletop and knock down virtual pins. The users watch the virtual pins through the monitor. The lane and the ball are also tracked by vision-based tracking. In those applications, we utilize multiple 2D markers distributed at arbitrary positions and directions. Even though the geometrical relationship among the markers is unknown, we can track the camera in very wide area

The screen as boundary object in the realm of imagination

As an object at the boundary between virtual and physical reality, the screen exists both as a displayer and as a thing displayed, thus functioning as a mediator. The screen's virtual imagery produces a sense of immersion in its viewer, yet at the same time the materiality of the screen produces a sense of rejection from the viewer's complete involvement in the virtual world. The experience of the screen is thus an oscillation between these two states of immersion and rejection. Nowadays, as interactivity becomes a central component of the relationship between viewers and many artworks, the viewer experience of the screen is changing. Unlike the screen experience in non-interactive artworks, such as the traditional static screen of painting or the moving screen of video art in the 1970s, interactive media screen experiences can provide viewers with a more immersive, immediate, and therefore, more intense experience. For example, many digital media artworks provide an interactive experience for viewers by capturing their face or body though real-time computer vision techniques. In this situation, as the camera and the monitor in the artwork encapsulate the interactor's body in an instant feedback loop, the interactor becomes a part of the interface mechanism and responds to the artwork as the system leads or even provokes them. This thesis claims that this kind of direct mirroring in interactive screen-based media artworks does not allow the viewer the critical distance or time needed for self-reflection. The thesis examines the previous aesthetics of spatial and temporal perception, such as presentness and instantaneousness, and the notions of passage and of psychological perception such as reflection, reflexiveness and auratic experience, looking at how these aesthetics can be integrated into new media screen experiences. Based on this theoretical research, the thesis claims that interactive screen spaces can act as a site for expression and representation, both through a doubling effect between the physical and virtual worlds, and through manifold spatial and temporal mappings with the screen experience. These claims are further supported through exploration of screen-based media installations created by the author since 2003.Ph.D.Committee Chair: Mazalek, Ali; Committee Member: Bolter, Jay David; Committee Member: Do, Ellen Yi-Luen; Committee Member: Nitsche, Michael; Committee Member: Winegarden, Claudia R

ビットと身体をつなぐクリエイションツール研究

東京藝術大学平成25年

Agentes pedagógicos animados: estudo do seu impacto em ambientes interactivos de aprendizagem

Mestrado em Multimédia em EducaçãoA crescente utilização das tecnologias de informação e comunicação no ensino tem vindo a implicar, de igual modo, um aumento do uso de softwares educativos. Surge, assim, a necessidade de encontrar formas de seleccionar e avaliar esses produtos que tenham em consideração não tanto os seus atributos técnicos mas os aspectos educativos envolvidos. Uma das características comummente encontradas nos softwares para fins didácticos é a presença de personagens animadas que procuram captar a atenção do utilizador, motivá-lo ou, ainda, ajudá-lo a realizar certas tarefas. Estas personagens são utilizadas com base na característica humana de “antropomorfizar” os objectos. Assim concebem-se figuras que acompanham o utilizador durante a exploração dos softwares como se de um companheiro real se tratasse. No entanto, os objectivos que levaram à inclusão destas figuras nem sempre são cumpridos, talvez pelo processo de design não ser centrado no utilizador ou por falta de uma avaliação sistemática desses produtos e das suas personagens. A dissertação aqui apresentada tem como tema central os agentes pedagógicos animados, procurando analisar o seu impacto na interacção com ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem e, mais especificamente, com o software educativo TeLL me More® Kids. Para compreender a influência destas personagens no desenvolvimento de apetências e de competências transversais e específicas da área disciplinar de Inglês, realizou-se um estudo de caso numa turma de sexto ano do Ensino Básico, no ano lectivo de 2004/2005. Os dados obtidos foram tratados, essencialmente, de forma qualitativa dando origem a textos de carácter descritivo. Neste estudo participaram vinte e seis alunos, as Professoras de Inglês e de Português da turma e a Investigadora que, durante as seis sessões de exploração do CD-ROM, observou, de forma participante, os comportamentos dos discentes. Para a investigação foram utilizados diversos instrumentos e técnicas, salientando-se os Questionários, Inicial e Final, os testes de conhecimento, Pré e Pós-Teste, as Grelhas de Observação, o Diário de Bordo, as entrevistas, o registo fotográfico e vídeo e os artefactos realizados pelos alunos. Os resultados do estudo mostraram que os agentes pedagógicos animados, independentemente da sua complexidade tecnológica, actuam sobretudo ao nível da emoção e da motivação, o que, por sua vez, constitui um factor essencial para o desenvolvimento cognitivo dos alunos.The growing use of information and communication technologies in education has been implying quite as well an increasing use of educational software. There arises thus the need to find ways of selecting and evaluating those products – ways that have into consideration not so much their technical attributes as the educational aspects involved. One of the features commonly found in didactic software is the presence of animated characters that try to catch the user’s attention, motivate him or, further, help him carry out certain tasks. These characters are used on the basis of the human trait to anthropomorphize the objects. They are thus conceived to accompany the user during the exploration of the software as though they were real mates. However, the goals which led to the inclusion of these figures are not always achieved, perhaps due to the fact that sometimes the design process is not centred on the user, or perhaps because those products and their characters are not submitted to a systematic evaluation procedure. The animated pedagogical agents are the central theme of the dissertation presented here, which tries to analyse their impact in the interaction with learning virtual environments and, more specifically, with TeLL me More® Kids educational software. In order to understand the influence of these characters in the development of appetencies and transversal and specific skills in the subject area of English, a case study was held with a sixth-year form of a Basic School, during the 2004/2005 school year. The gathered data were essentially analysed and interpreted essentially according to qualitative research methods and resulted in descriptive texts. The study involved twenty-six students, their English and Portuguese Teachers and the Researcher who, during the six exploring sessions of the CD-ROM, observed, in a participating way, the behaviours of the students. Several instruments and techniques were used for this research, such as an Initial and a Final Questionnaire, knowledge tests, a Pre and a Post-Test, Observation Grids, a Log-Book, interviews, photographic and video recordings and other significant artefacts produced by the students. The results of the study showed that animated pedagogical agents, independently of their technological complexity, act mostly on the level of emotion and motivation, which, by its turn, constitutes an essential factor in the cognitive development of the students

Designing the World as your Palette

The World as your Palette" is our ongoing effort to design and develop tools to allow artists to create visual art projects with elements (specifically, the color, texture, and moving patterns) extracted directly from their personal objects and their immediate environment. Our tool called "I/O Brush" looks like a regular physical paintbrush, but contains a video camera, lights, and touch sensors. Outside of the drawing canvas, the brush can pick up colors, textures, and movements of a brushed surface. On the canvas, artists can draw with the special "ink" they just picked up from their immediate environment. We describe the evolution and development of our system, from kindergarten classrooms to an art museum, as well as the reactions of our users to the growing expressive capabilities of our brush, as an iterative design process. Keywords Drawing, Children, Storytelling, Interaction Design, Tangible User Interfaces, Usability Research, User Experience, User Interface Design, User Research, User-Centered Design / Human-Centered Design, Visual Design Categories and subject descriptors Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). CHI 2--7, 2005, Portland, Oregon, USA. ACM 1-59593-002-7/05/0004