CreaTable Content and Tangible Interaction in Aphasia

Multimedia digital content (combining pictures, text and music) is ubiquitous. The process of creating such content using existing tools typically requires complex, language-laden interactions which pose a challenge for users with aphasia (a language impairment following brain injury). Tangible interactions offer a potential means to address this challenge, however, there has been little work exploring their potential for this purpose. In this paper, we present CreaTable – a platform that enables us to explore tangible interaction as a means of supporting digital content creation for people with aphasia. We report details of the co-design of CreaTable and findings from a digital creativity workshop. Workshop findings indicated that CreaTable enabled people with aphasia to create something they would not otherwise have been able to. We report how users’ aphasia profiles affected their experience, describe tensions in collaborative content creation and provide insight into more accessible content creation using tangibles

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

The effect of representation location on interaction in a tangible learning environment

Drawing on the 'representation' TUI framework [21], this paper reports a study that investigated the concept of 'representation location' and its effect on interaction and learning. A reacTIVision-based tangible interface was designed and developed to support children learning about the behaviour of light. Children aged eleven years worked with the environment in groups of three. Findings suggest that different representation locations lend themselves to different levels of abstraction and engender different forms and levels of activity, particularly with respect to speed of dynamics and differences in group awareness. Furthermore, the studies illustrated interaction effects according to different physical correspondence metaphors used, particularly with respect to combining familiar physical objects with digital--based table-top representation. The implications of these findings for learning are discussed

Exploring context-sensitive collaborative augmented reality applications

In smart spaces limited amount of physical resources are available. Also, system should be able to offer relevant information according to user’s personal preferences. At the same time smart environments could serve many users with same requirement of relevancy and operate on limited resources. Sometimes it may not be possible to share resource in a way that respects all users without compromising collaboration. This thesis is focused on solving the problem of shared resource from the perspective of augmented reality. Selected standpoint is on mobile collaborative augmented reality and context-awareness. A small user study has been arranged as part of thesis to bring out information about user’s thoughts and emotions while using a simple prototype application. In addition, a small literature review about main concepts is conducted. There is a short analysis of some collaborative augmented reality applications presented based on recent literature. Results of the thesis show that even with small experiments it is possible to discover new information from users. Results also provide tentative answers to presented research questions. Main findings are that users have high expectations towards context-awareness and augmented reality technologies. They also expect applications to offer relevant, validated and also surprising information in each situation. This thesis has some evidence about suitability of augmented reality in context-aware applications that are targeted to support human-to human collaboration. With augmented reality it is possible to offer individual standpoints for users while they are inspecting limited, shared resources. Endorsement of user’s ability to monitor their environment is one challenge in large smart environments. Finally, software engineer can take user’s expectations into account when designing context-aware systems for smart environments. Also, developer could implement system that takes advantage of different human sensory modalities