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

Affordances of Historic Urban Landscapes: an Ecological Understanding of Human Interaction with the Past

Heritage has been defined differently in European contexts. Despite differences, a common challenge for historic urban landscape management is the integration of tangible and intangible heritage. Integration demands an active view of perception and human-landscape interaction where intangible values are linked to specific places and meanings are attached to particular cultural practices and socio-spatial organisation. Tangible and intangible values can be examined as part of a system of affordances (potentialities) a place, artefact or cultural practice has to offer. This paper discusses how an ‘affordance analysis’ may serve as a useful tool for the management of historic urban landscapes

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

SenToy and FantasyA: evaluating affective gaming

Gaming is a highly relevant application area for Intelligent Agents and Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Computer games bring us a full set of new gaming experiences where synthetic characters take on the main role.Using affective input in the interaction with a game and in particular with a character is a recent and fairly unexplored dimension. This video presents a study of a tangible interaction device for affective input and its use in a role-playing game where emotions are part of the game logic

Teegi: Tangible EEG Interface

We introduce Teegi, a Tangible ElectroEncephaloGraphy (EEG) Interface that enables novice users to get to know more about something as complex as brain signals, in an easy, en- gaging and informative way. To this end, we have designed a new system based on a unique combination of spatial aug- mented reality, tangible interaction and real-time neurotech- nologies. With Teegi, a user can visualize and analyze his or her own brain activity in real-time, on a tangible character that can be easily manipulated, and with which it is possible to interact. An exploration study has shown that interacting with Teegi seems to be easy, motivating, reliable and infor- mative. Overall, this suggests that Teegi is a promising and relevant training and mediation tool for the general public.Comment: to appear in UIST-ACM User Interface Software and Technology Symposium, Oct 2014, Honolulu, United State

Move, hold and touch: A framework for Tangible gesture interactive systems

© 2015 by the authors. Technology is spreading in our everyday world, and digital interaction beyond the screen, with real objects, allows taking advantage of our natural manipulative and communicative skills. Tangible gesture interaction takes advantage of these skills by bridging two popular domains in Human-Computer Interaction, tangible interaction and gestural interaction. In this paper, we present the Tangible Gesture Interaction Framework (TGIF) for classifying and guiding works in this field. We propose a classification of gestures according to three relationships with objects: move, hold and touch. Following this classification, we analyzed previous work in the literature to obtain guidelines and common practices for designing and building new tangible gesture interactive systems. We describe four interactive systems as application examples of the TGIF guidelines and we discuss the descriptive, evaluative and generative power of TGIF

Beyond representations: towards an action-centric perspective on tangible interaction

In the light of theoretical as well as concrete technical development, we discuss a conceptual shift from an information-centric to an action-centric perspective on tangible interactive technology. We explicitly emphasise the qualities of shareable use, and the importance of designing tangibles that allow for meaningful manipulation and control of the digital material. This involves a broadened focus from studying properties of the interface, to instead aim for qualities of the activity of using a system, a general tendency towards designing for social and sharable use settings and an increased openness towards multiple and subjective interpretations. An effect of this is that tangibles are not designed as representations of data, but as resources for action. We discuss four ways that tangible artefacts work as resources for action: (1) for physical manipulation; (2) for referential, social and contextually oriented action; (3) for perception and sensory experience; (4) for digitally mediated action

Creative idea exploration within the structure of a guiding framework : the card brainstorming game

I present a card brainstorming exercise that transforms a conceptual tangible interaction framework into a tool for creative dialogue and discuss the experiences made in using it. Ten sessions with this card game demonstrate the frameworks' versatility and utility. Observation and participant feedback highlight the value of a provocative question format and of the metaphor of a card game

Towards a framework for investigating tangible environments for learning

External representations have been shown to play a key role in mediating cognition. Tangible environments offer the opportunity for novel representational formats and combinations, potentially increasing representational power for supporting learning. However, we currently know little about the specific learning benefits of tangible environments, and have no established framework within which to analyse the ways that external representations work in tangible environments to support learning. Taking external representation as the central focus, this paper proposes a framework for investigating the effect of tangible technologies on interaction and cognition. Key artefact-action-representation relationships are identified, and classified to form a structure for investigating the differential cognitive effects of these features. An example scenario from our current research is presented to illustrate how the framework can be used as a method for investigating the effectiveness of differential designs for supporting science learning