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

Tangible user interfaces for learning

Tangible user interfaces (TUIs), systems characterised by the embodiment of interaction in physical objects, have attracted general interest but have not yet been widely adopted for learning. Employing these kinds of novel technologies could yield substantial benefits to learners. This paper provides a review of state-of-the-art TUIs for learning, scoped by a revised definition of TUIs that serves to delineate and differentiate these from other kinds of interfaces. We propose a classification framework that attends to important aspects of TUIs for use in learning and review tangible systems within this classification to expose research and design gaps. Our work provides guidance for researchers and learning technologists to help identify potential research directions for TUIs for learning

Evaluating Metaphor Reification in Tangible Interfaces

International audienceMetaphors are a powerful conceptual device to reason about human actions. As such, they have been heavily used in designing and describing human computer interaction. Since they can address scripted text, verbal expression, imaging, sound, and gestures, they can also be considered in the design and analysis of multimodal interfaces. In this paper we discuss the description and evaluation of the relations between metaphors and their implementation in human computer interaction with a focus on tangible user interfaces (TUIs), a form of multimodal interface. The objective of this paper is to define how metaphors appear in a tangible context in order to support their evaluation. Relying on matching entities and operations between the domain of interaction and the domain of the digital application, we propose a conceptual framework based on three components: a structured representation of the mappings holding between the metaphor source, the metaphor target, the interface and the digital system; a conceptual model for describing metaphorical TUIs; three relevant properties, coherence, coverage and compliance, which define at what extent the implementation of a metaphorical tangible interface matches the metaphor. The conceptual framework is then validated and applied on a tangible prototype in an educational application

Storytelling through drawings : evaluating tangible interfaces for children

This paper presents an ongoing study comparing the potential and the quality of the experiences provided by tangible versus traditional interfaces. The study was carried with two groups of kindergarten children using two interfaces that aim to motivate children to the practice of oral hygiene. Children‟s drawings were one of the methods used to assess their experience. We found differences quantitatively and qualitatively between the drawings of the children interacting with the tangible interface and the traditional interface. The drawings suggest that by interacting with the tangible interface children felt more actively involved with the task.(undefined

Sensators: active multisensory tangible user interfaces

Although Tangible User Interfaces are considered an intuitive means of human-computer interaction, they oftentimes lack the option to provide active feedback. We developed ‘Sensators’: generic shaped active tangibles to be used on a multi-touch table. Sensators can represent digital information by means of ‘Sensicons’: multimodal messages consisting of visual, auditory, and vibro- tactile cues. In our demonstration, we will present Sensators as suitable tools for research on multimodal perception in different tangible HCI tasks