Exploring the Affective Loop

Research in psychology and neurology shows that both body and mind are involved when experiencing emotions (Damasio 1994, Davidson et al. 2003). People are also very physical when they try to communicate their emotions. Somewhere in between beings consciously and unconsciously aware of it ourselves, we produce both verbal and physical signs to make other people understand how we feel. Simultaneously, this production of signs involves us in a stronger personal experience of the emotions we express. Emotions are also communicated in the digital world, but there is little focus on users' personal as well as physical experience of emotions in the available digital media. In order to explore whether and how we can expand existing media, we have designed, implemented and evaluated /eMoto/, a mobile service for sending affective messages to others. With eMoto, we explicitly aim to address both cognitive and physical experiences of human emotions. Through combining affective gestures for input with affective expressions that make use of colors, shapes and animations for the background of messages, the interaction "pulls" the user into an /affective loop/. In this thesis we define what we mean by affective loop and present a user-centered design approach expressed through four design principles inspired by previous work within Human Computer Interaction (HCI) but adjusted to our purposes; /embodiment/ (Dourish 2001) as a means to address how people communicate emotions in real life, /flow/ (Csikszentmihalyi 1990) to reach a state of involvement that goes further than the current context, /ambiguity/ of the designed expressions (Gaver et al. 2003) to allow for open-ended interpretation by the end-users instead of simplistic, one-emotion one-expression pairs and /natural but designed expressions/ to address people's natural couplings between cognitively and physically experienced emotions. We also present results from an end-user study of eMoto that indicates that subjects got both physically and emotionally involved in the interaction and that the designed "openness" and ambiguity of the expressions, was appreciated and understood by our subjects. Through the user study, we identified four potential design problems that have to be tackled in order to achieve an affective loop effect; the extent to which users' /feel in control/ of the interaction, /harmony and coherence/ between cognitive and physical expressions/,/ /timing/ of expressions and feedback in a communicational setting, and effects of users' /personality/ on their emotional expressions and experiences of the interaction

Games and Play SIG: Connecting Games Research to the Broader HCI Context

Research on games and play has been present at CHI since the first conference in 1982. The community-building efforts of many volunteers has grown the games and play community within SIGCHI into a vibrant and active group of researchers, with a dedicated conference (CHI PLAY) that publishes its full papers in the GAMES track of the ACM PACMHCI journal. However, we there are members of the larger HCI community whose research and practice intersects with games and play—in topics such as emerging technologies; VR/AR/XR; theories of motivation, experience, and personality; metaverse; livestreaming; fan, and spectator communities; accessibility; and serious games—who may never have attended a games-specific conference. The purpose of this SIG is to offer a lightweight opportunity for CHI attendees to connect with the games and play research community. Our aim is to meet as a community, and to connect with HCI researchers who have not traditionally seen their work as part of games and play for networking and bi-directional idea exchange

Gravity well: underwater play

More and more technology supports utilitarian interactions in altered gravity conditions, for example underwater and during Zero-G flights. Extending this, we are interested in digital play in these conditions, and in particular see an opportunity to explore underwater bodily games. We present an interactive shallow-water system that supports bodily play through water-movement interactions: Gravity Well. Through designing the system and combining aquabatic principles with exertion game design strategies, we identified a set of design tactics for underwater play based on the relationship between the afforded type, and level, of bodily exertion relative to pressure change and narcosis. With our work, we aim to inspire designers to utilize the unique characteristics of bodily interactions underwater and guide them in developing digital play in altered gravity domains

I-Interaction: An Intelligent In-Vehicle User Interaction Model

The automobile is always a point of interest where new technology has been deployed. Because of this interest, human-vehicle interaction has been an appealing area for much research in recent years. The current in-vehicle design has been improved but still possesses some of the design from the traditional interaction style. In this paper, we propose a new user-oriented model for in-vehicle interaction model known as i-Interaction. The i-Interaction model provides user with an intuitive approach to interact with the In-Vehicle Information System (IVIS) by the keypad entry. It is the intent that the proposed usability testing for this model will help improve the way research and development is implemented from this topic. This model does not only provide the user with a direct interaction in vehicles but also introduce a new prospective that other research has not addressed.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Patterns and Pattern Sites in HCI: An Analysis

Interest in patterns and pattern languages in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) continues. However, many of the questions and concerns in this area have yet to be addressed. These questions and concerns include lack of empirical evidence to support the claimed benefits, lack of a standard pattern format, and lack of an organizing principle. This paper describes an analysis of the design of pattern websites and their respective patterns. A systematic online search using multiple search engines and multiple search phrases was conducted in attempt to further understand the current state of affairs, including pattern format and organizing principles. The results suggest that the community has yet to adopt a standard pattern format. Although, the essence of Alexander’s patterns was found in most patterns. The findings highlight the progress that we, as a community, have made in some areas, but remind us that there is work to do in other areas

Exploratory Research Methods for the Extremely Mobile: Supporting Community Interaction Amongst Backpackers

Mobile communities of backpackers represent a challenging population to study because of frequent and long-duration of movement, distributed group structure, and adventuresome activities. Five types of mobile group studies are presented here, which address challenges posed by this context to existing methods. Methods used include: contextual interviews, site surveys, participatory activities, field trips, team ethnography, contextual questionnaires, and electronic diary methods. The structure of each method is described, reflected upon and recommendations are made for its effective use. Many existing mobile and CSCW methods have difficulties when applied to mobile groups, and many are not designed for exploratory research dealing with product conceptualization or requirements analysis. We propose that improvising with a diverse set of available methods is appropriate for many mobile research situations. It may also be advantageous to use multiple methods which explore different aspects of target user groups' behaviour from a variety of perspectives. Furthermore, piloting studies to test methods with new user groups or situations, and using in-situ methods is advisable

Designing Affective Loop Experiences

There is a lack of attention to the emotional and the physical aspects of communication in how we up to now have been approaching communication between people in the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI). As de-signers of digital communication tools we need to consider altering the un-derlying model for communication that has been prevailing in HCI: the in-formation transfer model. Communication is about so much more than trans-ferring information. It is about getting to know yourself, who you are and what part you play in the communication as it unfolds. It is also about the experience of a communication process, what it feels like, how that feeling changes, when it changes, why and perhaps by whom the process is initiated, altered, or disrupted. The idea of Affective Loop experiences in design aims to create new expressive and experiential media for whole users, embodied with the social and physical world they live in, and where communication not only is about getting the message across but also about living the experi-ence of communication- feeling it. An Affective Loop experience is an emerging, in the moment, emotional experience where the inner emotional experience, the situation at hand and the social and physical context act together, to create for one complete em-bodied experience. The loop perspective comes from how this experience takes place in communication and how there is a rhythmic pattern in com-munication where those involved take turns in both expressing themselves and standing back interpreting the moment. To allow for Affective Loop experiences with or through a computer system, the user needs to be allowed to express herself in rich personal ways involv-ing our many ways of expressing and sensing emotions – muscles tensions, facial expressions and more. For the user to become further engaged in inter-action, the computer system needs the capability to return relevant, either diminishing, enforcing or disruptive feedback to those emotions expressed by the user so that the she wants to continue express herself by either strengthening, changing or keeping her expression. We describe how we used the idea of Affective Loop experiences as a con-ceptual tool to navigate a design space of gestural input combined with rich instant feedback. In our design journey, we created two systems, eMoto and FriendSense

Pattern languages in HCI: A critical review

This article presents a critical review of patterns and pattern languages in human-computer interaction (HCI). In recent years, patterns and pattern languages have received considerable attention in HCI for their potential as a means for developing and communicating information and knowledge to support good design. This review examines the background to patterns and pattern languages in HCI, and seeks to locate pattern languages in relation to other approaches to interaction design. The review explores four key issues: What is a pattern? What is a pattern language? How are patterns and pattern languages used? and How are values reflected in the pattern-based approach to design? Following on from the review, a future research agenda is proposed for patterns and pattern languages in HCI