Continuity in cognition

Designing for continuous interaction requires designers to consider the way in which human users can perceive and evaluate an artefact’s observable behaviour, in order to make inferences about its state and plan, and execute their own continuous behaviour. Understanding the human point of view in continuous interaction requires an understanding of human causal reasoning, of the way in which humans perceive and structure the world, and of human cognition. We present a framework for representing human cognition, and show briefly how it relates to the analysis of structure in continuous interaction, and the ways in which it may be applied in design

’Eyes free’ in-car assistance: parent and child passenger collaboration during phone calls

This paper examines routine family car journeys, looking specifically at how passengers assist during a mobile telephone call while the drivers address the competing demands of handling the vehicle, interacting with various artefacts and controls in the cabin, and engage in co-located and remote conversations while navigating through busy city roads. Based on an analysis of video fragments, we see how drivers and child passengers form their conversations and requests around the call so as to be meaningful and paced to the demands, knowledge and abilities of their cooccupants, and how the conditions of the road and emergent traffic are oriented to and negotiated in the context of the social interaction that they exist alongside. The study provides implications for the design of car-based collaborative media and considers how hands- and eyesfree natural interfaces could be tailored to the complexity of activities in the car and on the road

Mid-air haptic rendering of 2D geometric shapes with a dynamic tactile pointer

An important challenge that affects ultrasonic midair haptics, in contrast to physical touch, is that we lose certain exploratory procedures such as contour following. This makes the task of perceiving geometric properties and shape identification more difficult. Meanwhile, the growing interest in mid-air haptics and their application to various new areas requires an improved understanding of how we perceive specific haptic stimuli, such as icons and control dials in mid-air. We address this challenge by investigating static and dynamic methods of displaying 2D geometric shapes in mid-air. We display a circle, a square, and a triangle, in either a static or dynamic condition, using ultrasonic mid-air haptics. In the static condition, the shapes are presented as a full outline in mid-air, while in the dynamic condition, a tactile pointer is moved around the perimeter of the shapes. We measure participants’ accuracy and confidence of identifying shapes in two controlled experiments (n1 = 34, n2 = 25). Results reveal that in the dynamic condition people recognise shapes significantly more accurately, and with higher confidence. We also find that representing polygons as a set of individually drawn haptic strokes, with a short pause at the corners, drastically enhances shape recognition accuracy. Our research supports the design of mid-air haptic user interfaces in application scenarios such as in-car interactions or assistive technology in education

Sensor Sleeve: Sensing Affective Gestures

We describe the use of textile sensors mounted in a garment sleeve to detect affective gestures. The `Sensor Sleeve' is part of a larger project to explore the role of affect in communications. Pressure activated, capacitive and elasto-resistive sensors are investigated and their relative merits reported on. An implemented application is outlined in which a cellphone receives messages derived from the sleeve's sensors using a Bluetooth interface, and relays the signals as text messages to the user's nominated partner

A first approach to understanding and measuring naturalness in driver-car interaction

With technology changing the nature of the driving task, qualitative methods can help designers understand and measure driver-car interaction naturalness. Fifteen drivers were interviewed at length in their own parked cars using ethnographically-inspired questions probing issues of interaction salience, expectation, feelings, desires and meanings. Thematic analysis and content analysis found five distinct components relating to 'rich physical' aspects of natural feeling interaction typified by richer physical, analogue, tactile styles of interaction and control. Further components relate to humanlike, intelligent, assistive, socially-aware 'perceived behaviours' of the car. The advantages and challenges of a naturalness-based approach are discussed and ten cognitive component constructs of driver-car naturalness are proposed. These may eventually be applied as a checklist in automotive interaction design.This research was fully funded by a research grant from Jaguar Land Rover, and partially funded by project n.220050/F11 granted by Research Council of Norway

Design and semantics of form and movement (DeSForM 2006)

Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM) grew from applied research exploring emerging design methods and practices to support new generation product and interface design. The products and interfaces are concerned with: the context of ubiquitous computing and ambient technologies and the need for greater empathy in the pre-programmed behaviour of the ‘machines’ that populate our lives. Such explorative research in the CfDR has been led by Young, supported by Kyffin, Visiting Professor from Philips Design and sponsored by Philips Design over a period of four years (research funding £87k). DeSForM1 was the first of a series of three conferences that enable the presentation and debate of international work within this field: • 1st European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM1), Baltic, Gateshead, 2005, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. • 2nd European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM2), Evoluon, Eindhoven, 2006, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. • 3rd European conference on Design and Semantics of Form and Movement (DeSForM3), New Design School Building, Newcastle, 2007, Feijs L., Kyffin S. & Young R.A. eds. Philips sponsorship of practice-based enquiry led to research by three teams of research students over three years and on-going sponsorship of research through the Northumbria University Design and Innovation Laboratory (nuDIL). Young has been invited on the steering panel of the UK Thinking Digital Conference concerning the latest developments in digital and media technologies. Informed by this research is the work of PhD student Yukie Nakano who examines new technologies in relation to eco-design textiles