Reinventing Graphic Design Software by Bridging the Gap Between Graphical User Interfaces and Programming

International audienceGraphic Design Software Applications radically transformed the practice and the industry of graphic design. However, they barely evolved since their introduction, leading designers to question their ubiquity. In this paper, we explore this mismatch by analysing digital design tools through two lenses. We first investigate digital design tools from a "lineage" perspective: how they reproduced the pre-existing design tools and practices. We then use two familiar examples: the colour picker and the alignment and distribution commands to explore the vision of design that they promote. We reveal how these tools assume that designers already have in mind a desired outcome and thus introduce a mismatch with current designers' practices. To bridge this gap, we propose "graphical substrates", interactive and visual tools that combine the strengths of both programming and graphical user interfaces. We analyse how several recent research design tools embed this approach and we propose two principles: tweaking and creation from example to foster their adoption by designers

PaperComposer: Creating Interactive Paper Interfaces for Music Composition

National audienceInteractive paper technologies offer new opportunities for supporting the highly individual practices of creative artists, such as contemporary music composers, who express and explore their ideas on both paper and the computer. We introduce PaperComposer, a graphical interface builder that allows users to create a personalized interactive paper interface that they can connect to their own computer-based musical data. We also present an API that facilitates the development of interactive paper components for PaperComposer. We describe one public demonstration of a novel musical interface designed for children and our collaborations with composers to create two novel interactive music interfaces that reflected their individual composition styles

Music and HCI

Music is an evolutionarily deep-rooted, abstract, real-time, complex, non-verbal, social activity. Consequently, interaction design in music can be a valuable source of challenges and new ideas for HCI. This workshop will reflect on the latest research in Music and HCI (Music Interaction for short), with the aim of strengthening the dialogue between the Music Interaction community and the wider HCI community. We will explore recent ideas from Music Interaction that may contribute new perspectives to general HCI practice, and conversely, recent HCI research in non-musical domains with implications for Music Interaction. We will also identify any concerns of Music Interaction that may require unique approaches. Contributors engaged in research in any area of Music Interaction or HCI who would like to contribute to a sustained widening of the dialogue between the distinctive concerns of the Music Interaction community and the wider HCI community will be welcome

Collaborative Playlist-Making: Musical Interaction via Digitally Mediated Co-Curation

Collaborative playlist-making (CPM), a form of music co-curation where two or more people select and order recordedmusic together, is a form of group musical engagement that has recently risen to prominence among musicians and nonmusicians in the general population. This paper presents CPM as a form of technologically mediated group musical engagement and informs researchers as to how CPM and its constituent behaviors may be studied in relation to other forms of musical engagement, particularly group music-making. In addition, specific psychological processes expected to be elicited by CPM - self-other merging, cognitive perspective-taking, and shared intentionality - are explicated in an effort to evince how CPM may give rise to socio-cognitive transfer effects in line with Goldman’s reconstructive route to empathy. The main purpose of this paper is to promote music psychologists’ study of CPM to probe how musical interaction occurring within everyday contexts can harness music’s potential to facilitate communication and bring about social benefits

Situational influences on rhythmicity in speech, music, and their interaction.

Brain processes underlying the production and perception of rhythm indicate considerable flexibility in how physical signals are interpreted. This paper explores how that flexibility might play out in rhythmicity in speech and music. There is much in common across the two domains, but there are also significant differences. Interpretations are explored that reconcile some of the differences, particularly with respect to how functional properties modify the rhythmicity of speech, within limits imposed by its structural constraints. Functional and structural differences mean that music is typically more rhythmic than speech, and that speech will be more rhythmic when the emotions are more strongly engaged, or intended to be engaged. The influence of rhythmicity on attention is acknowledged, and it is suggested that local increases in rhythmicity occur at times when attention is required to coordinate joint action, whether in talking or music-making. Evidence is presented which suggests that while these short phases of heightened rhythmical behaviour are crucial to the success of transitions in communicative interaction, their modality is immaterial: they all function to enhance precise temporal prediction and hence tightly coordinated joint action

Beyond Grids, Interactive Graphical Substrates to Structure Digital Layout

International audienceTraditional graphic design tools emphasize the grid for structuring layout. Interviews with professional graphic designers revealed that they use surprisingly sophisticated structures that go beyond the grid, which we call graphical substrates. We present a framework to describe how designers establish graphical substrates based on properties extracted from concepts, content and context, and use them to compose layouts in both space and time. We developed two technology probes to explore how to embed graphical substrates into tools. Contextify lets designers tailor layouts according to each reader's intention and context; while Linkify lets designers create dynamic layouts based on relationships among content properties. We tested the probes with professional graphic designers, who all identified novel uses in their current projects. We incorporated their suggestions into, StyleBlocks, a prototype that reifies CSS declarations into interactive graphical substrates. Graphical substrates offer an untapped design space for tools that can help graphic designers generate personal layout structures

Understanding Music Interaction, and Why It Matters

This is the introductory chapter of a book dedicated to new research in, and emerging new understandings of, music and human-computer interaction—known for short as music interaction. Music interaction research plays a key role in innovative approaches to diverse musical activities, including performance, composition, education, analysis, production and collaborative music making. Music interaction is pivotal in new research directions in a range of activities, including audience participation, interaction between music and dancers, tools for algorithmic music, music video games, audio games, turntablism and live coding. More generally, music provides a powerful source of challenges and new ideas for human-computer interaction (HCI). This introductory chapter reviews the relationship between music and human-computer interaction and outlines research themes and issues that emerge from the collected work of researchers and practitioners in this book

Physical sketching tools and techniques for customized sensate surfaces

Sensate surfaces are a promising avenue for enhancing human interaction with digital systems due to their inherent intuitiveness and natural user interface. Recent technological advancements have enabled sensate surfaces to surpass the constraints of conventional touchscreens by integrating them into everyday objects, creating interactive interfaces that can detect various inputs such as touch, pressure, and gestures. This allows for more natural and intuitive control of digital systems. However, prototyping interactive surfaces that are customized to users' requirements using conventional techniques remains technically challenging due to limitations in accommodating complex geometric shapes and varying sizes. Furthermore, it is crucial to consider the context in which customized surfaces are utilized, as relocating them to fabrication labs may lead to the loss of their original design context. Additionally, prototyping high-resolution sensate surfaces presents challenges due to the complex signal processing requirements involved. This thesis investigates the design and fabrication of customized sensate surfaces that meet the diverse requirements of different users and contexts. The research aims to develop novel tools and techniques that overcome the technical limitations of current methods and enable the creation of sensate surfaces that enhance human interaction with digital systems.Sensorische Oberflächen sind aufgrund ihrer inhärenten Intuitivität und natürlichen Benutzeroberfläche ein vielversprechender Ansatz, um die menschliche Interaktionmit digitalen Systemen zu verbessern. Die jüngsten technologischen Fortschritte haben es ermöglicht, dass sensorische Oberflächen die Beschränkungen herkömmlicher Touchscreens überwinden, indem sie in Alltagsgegenstände integriert werden und interaktive Schnittstellen schaffen, die diverse Eingaben wie Berührung, Druck, oder Gesten erkennen können. Dies ermöglicht eine natürlichere und intuitivere Steuerung von digitalen Systemen. Das Prototyping interaktiver Oberflächen, die mit herkömmlichen Techniken an die Bedürfnisse der Nutzer angepasst werden, bleibt jedoch eine technische Herausforderung, da komplexe geometrische Formen und variierende Größen nur begrenzt berücksichtigt werden können. Darüber hinaus ist es von entscheidender Bedeutung, den Kontext, in dem diese individuell angepassten Oberflächen verwendet werden, zu berücksichtigen, da eine Verlagerung in Fabrikations-Laboratorien zum Verlust ihres ursprünglichen Designkontextes führen kann. Zudem stellt das Prototyping hochauflösender sensorischer Oberflächen aufgrund der komplexen Anforderungen an die Signalverarbeitung eine Herausforderung dar. Diese Arbeit erforscht dasDesign und die Fabrikation individuell angepasster sensorischer Oberflächen, die den diversen Anforderungen unterschiedlicher Nutzer und Kontexte gerecht werden. Die Forschung zielt darauf ab, neuartigeWerkzeuge und Techniken zu entwickeln, die die technischen Beschränkungen derzeitigerMethoden überwinden und die Erstellung von sensorischen Oberflächen ermöglichen, die die menschliche Interaktion mit digitalen Systemen verbessern