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

Integrating Multiple 3D Views through Frame-of-reference Interaction

Frame-of-reference interaction consists of a unified set of 3D interaction techniques for exploratory navigation of large virtual spaces in nonimmersive environments. It is based on a conceptual framework that considers navigation from a cognitive perspective, as a way of facilitating changes in user attention from one reference frame to another, rather than from the mechanical perspective of moving a camera between different points of interest. All of our techniques link multiple frames of reference in some meaningful way. Some techniques link multiple windows within a zooming environment while others allow seamless changes of user focus between static objects, moving objects, and groups of moving objects. We present our techniques as they are implemented in GeoZui3D, a geographic visualization system for ocean data

Interpersonal Emotion Regulation: Strategies, Behaviors, and Goals

Interpersonal emotion regulation (ER) happens constantly in daily life and plays a role in the success of friendships and relationships. Interpersonal ER refers to the process in which an individual makes efforts to change the emotional experience of another person. Understanding the relationship between interpersonal ER strategies and goals proves necessary towards discerning the effectiveness of different interpersonal ER strategies in various situations. Building on existing research, common strategies used to regulate others’ emotions include helping a partner to accept their emotions (acceptance), change the way they think about their emotions (reappraisal), or inhibit their emotions (suppression). However, alternative strategies may prove to be equally, if not more, common. Additionally, the goals and behaviors associated with interpersonal ER have not been extensively studied. In the present study, I examine the goals associated with interpersonal ER strategies, including the exploration of an additional strategy: distraction. To examine which strategies and goals people are likely to use in a scenario in which a friend is expressing negative feelings, 347 students wrote narratives regarding how they would respond. As expected, acceptance and reappraisal were found to be the most common, while suppression was used least frequently. Results point to the importance of distraction as a common interpersonal ER strategy. Significant relationships were found between four distinct strategies and related goals and behaviors, suggesting that individuals are motivated by specific regulatory, instrumental, and social outcomes beyond basic regulation of emotions. Discussion focuses on how these findings point to newavenues in interpersonal ER research

A novel haptic model and environment for maxillofacial surgical operation planning and manipulation

This paper presents a practical method and a new haptic model to support manipulations of bones and their segments during the planning of a surgical operation in a virtual environment using a haptic interface. To perform an effective dental surgery it is important to have all the operation related information of the patient available beforehand in order to plan the operation and avoid any complications. A haptic interface with a virtual and accurate patient model to support the planning of bone cuts is therefore critical, useful and necessary for the surgeons. The system proposed uses DICOM images taken from a digital tomography scanner and creates a mesh model of the filtered skull, from which the jaw bone can be isolated for further use. A novel solution for cutting the bones has been developed and it uses the haptic tool to determine and define the bone-cutting plane in the bone, and this new approach creates three new meshes of the original model. Using this approach the computational power is optimized and a real time feedback can be achieved during all bone manipulations. During the movement of the mesh cutting, a novel friction profile is predefined in the haptical system to simulate the force feedback feel of different densities in the bone

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities

The emotional contents of the ‘space’ in spatial music

Human spatial perception is how we understand places. Beyond understanding what is where (William James’ formulation of the psychological approach to perception); there are holistic qualities to places. We perceive places as busy, crowded, exciting, threatening or peaceful, calm, comfortable and so on. Designers of places spend a great deal of time and effort on these qualities; scientists rarely do. In the scientific world-view physical qualities and our emotive responses to them are neatly divided in the objective-subjective dichotomy. In this context, music has traditionally constituted an item in a place. Over the last two decades, development of “spatial music” has been within the prevailing engineering paradigm, informed by psychophysical data; here, space is an abstract, Euclidean 3-dimensional ‘container’ for events. The emotional consequence of spatial arrangements is not the main focus in this approach. This paper argues that a paradigm shift is appropriate, from ‘music-in-a-place’ to ‘music-as-a-place’ requiring a fundamental philosophical realignment of ‘meaning’ away from subjective response to include consequences-in-the-environment. Hence the hegemony of the subjective-objective dichotomy is questioned. There are precedents for this, for example in the ecological approach to perception (Gibson). An ecological approach to music-as-environment intrinsically treats the emotional consequences of spatio-musical arrangement holistically. A simplified taxonomy of the attributes of artificial spatial sound in this context will be discussed