Paper Gaming: Creating IoT Paper Interactions with Conductive Inks and Web-connectivity through EKKO

Paper is ubiquitous. It forms a substantial part of our everyday activities and interactions; ranging from our take-away coffee cups -- to wallpaper -- to rail tickets -- to board and card games. Imagine if you could connect paper to the Internet, interact and update it with additional data but without recourse to reprinting or using e-ink alternatives. This paper explores work examining conductive inks and web-connectivity of printed objects, which form part of an emergent sub-field within the Internet of Things (IoT) and paper. Our research is starting to explore a range of media uses, such as interactive newspapers, books, beer mats and now gaming environments through prototype IoT device named EKKO; a clip that allows conductive ink frameworks to detect human touch interaction revealing rich media content through a mobile application as the 'second screen'

Paper-based web connected objects and the Internet of Things through EKKO

Paper has existed as a communications ‘platform’ for thousands of years. It’s ‘versioning history’ spans papyrus, parchment and pulp, and when paper became a scalable and mass-production item, most famously via the Guttenberg press, it sparked unparalleled social and political change. It’s a technology that’s had ‘impact’. More recently, News and Information - a sector with paper at its core - has seen substantial editorial and commercial disruption from digital communications networks. This paper outlines a collaborative project between journalism, media and technology researchers, and commercial product designers, exploring the potential of paper-based web-connected objects. Our work examines how emergent conductive ink technologies could offer a disruptive alternative to existing media products, and explores how to create, power and populate a connected paper platform, and analyse user activity. Through a range of industry partnerships with newspaper, magazine and book publishers, our research creates new paper affordances and interactions, and positions paper as a digital disruptor

"Convince us'': an argument for the morality of persuasion

This paper explores the dierence between 'persuasion' and 'manipulation', both of which are instantiated in persuasive technologies to date. We present a case study of the system we are currently developing to foster local spending behavior by a community group | with sensitive implications for the community's sense of identity | and contrast our approach with what we would understand to be a manipulative approach. Our intention is to a) respond to anticipated critique that such a system could be interpreted as manipulative, b) present our argument for how persuasive technologies can be persuasive without being manipulative, and c) explain why, for this case study, its important that our approach be persuasive

Mobilising Monopoly:game design, place and social values

Location based games have seen the translation of popular boardgames into mixed reality settings through the integration of mobile phone technologies. This paper explores modifying the game of Monopoly from a boardgame to a locative mobile phone based game utilising NFC and QR code technologies to engage players with real world places. In doing so, the mechanics, rules and motivations for playing the game shifted in the prototyping of the game concept. Here, we outline the initial game design process, problems and possibilities in modifying such a well-known game to the city streets. We also detail how the mechanics of the game were updated to provide some solutions to ideas surrounding property values, social media values and player location in the new game design

Designing for the dichotomy of immersion in location based games

The interaction design of mixed reality location based games typically focuses upon the digital content of the mobile screen, as this is characteristically the primary navigational tool players use to traverse the game space. This emphasis on the digital over the physical means the opportunity for player immersion in mixed reality games is often limited to the single (digital) dimension. This research seeks to redress this imbalance, which is caused, in part, by the requirement for the player?s attention to be systematically switched between the two worlds, defined in this research as the ?Dichotomy of Immersion?. Using different design strategies we propose minimising the reliance of the player upon the mobile screen by encouraging greater observation of their physical surroundings. Using a ?research through design? approach for the mixed reality game PAC-LAN: Zombie Apocalypse, we illustrate design strategies for increasing immersion in location based games, which we believe will aid designers in enabling players to more readily engage with the physical context of the game and thus facilitate richer game experiences

Designing mobile augmented reality art applications:addressing the views of the galleries and the artists

The utilization of mobile augmented reality to display gallery artworks or museum content in novel ways is a well-established concept in the augmented reality research community. However, the focus of these systems is generally technologically driven or only addresses the end user and not the views of the gallery or the original artist. In this paper we discuss the design and development of the mobile application ?Taking the Artwork Home?, which allows people to digitally curate their own augmented reality art exhibitions in their own homes by digitally ?replacing? the pictures they have on their walls with content from the Peter Scott Gallery in Lancaster. In particular, we present the insights gained from a research through design methodology that allowed us to consider how the views of the gallery and artists impacted on the system design and therefore the user experience. Thus the final artifact is the result of an iterative evaluation process with over 100 users representing a broad range of demographics and continues to be evaluated/enhanced by observing its operation ?in the wild?. Further, we consider the effect the project has had on gallery practices to enable both augmented reality designers, and galleries and museums to maximize the potential application of the technology when working together on such project

Media Innovation Studio Interactive Review: Volume 1

The Media Innovation Studio’s founding aim in 2012 was to work across disciplines to explore the potential of creative and digital technologies to bring about positive change. Our ‘action research’ approach is lodged in a desire to create inclusively-designed prototypes as responses to real-world issues. Originally positioned within the University of Central Lancashire’s (UCLan) School of Journalism and Media, and now part of the College of Culture and the Creative Industries, the Studio’s remit is to inhabit ‘liminal spaces’ between disciplines. It hopes to explore, research and innovate within the digital ecosystem evolving around us. The human race is more socially, economically, politically and technologically interdependent than at any time in its history. Yet, inequality, instability and unsustainability remain. Collectively, the Media Innovation Studio is trying to understand whether technology has a contribution to make to resolving this broader set of fundamental social issues. Perhaps more interestingly, we’re asking whether there are an emerging series of ideas bound up in the creation and use of Information Computing Technology as it is repurposed by global communities to support activities that make our lives better. We do not believe that technology enables everyone by magically bridging the ‘digital divide’. Nor do we believe that its use by supporters of ‘digital democracy’ is any more democratic because of the use of ICT. Instead, we have discovered through a combination of talking to people, building relationships and making things together, possibilities for change are created. Thankfully, there’s plenty of evidence to demonstrate we’re capable of this. This review shows some of our projects, approaches and methodologies which combine disruptive design techniques, traditional social science and established practice-based methods from the arts. Focussing on the last 12 months of activity, the book also incorporates earlier projects that helped shape the thinking that brought us together to create the Media Innovation Studio

User curated augmented reality art exhibitions

Creating mobile augmented reality applications to display gallery artworks or museum content is a well-established concept within the research community. However, the focus of these systems is generally technologically driven and primarily addresses the end user and not the views of the gallery or the original artist. In this paper we present the design and development of the mobile application ?Taking the Artwork Home?, which allows people to digitally curate augmented reality art exhibitions in their own homes. A research through design methodology was adopted so that we could more fully understand how the views of the gallery and artists impacted on the artifact design and therefore the user experience

Supporting Creative Confidence in a Musical Composition Workshop: Sound of Colour

This paper explores and illuminates the work in progress of the ‘Sound of Colour’, an interactive musical installation, used to introduce musical concepts to children. Participants work in a collaborative manner to throw, roll, spin and bounce, coloured balls (typically found in children’s ball pits) to create an original generative musical composition, whilst learning the basics of pitch and volume. Through qualitative analysis and observations, the research discusses how a playful, colour based table top interface, affects the way that children interact with basic fundamentals of music, and how the interface affects their creative confidence when learning musical concepts. This study provides insight into how children interact and engage with a physical musical interface, in comparison to other tangible interfaces (button based controllers and mobile devices). In particular, when these instruments are used in a workshop setting, the research reveals novel methods for interaction with children to encourage and open up access to music composition

Mobilising Monopoly:game design, place and social values

Location based games have seen the translation of popular boardgames into mixed reality settings through the integration of mobile phone technologies. This paper explores modifying the game of Monopoly from a boardgame to a locative mobile phone based game utilising NFC and QR code technologies to engage players with real world places. In doing so, the mechanics, rules and motivations for playing the game shifted in the prototyping of the game concept. Here, we outline the initial game design process, problems and possibilities in modifying such a well-known game to the city streets. We also detail how the mechanics of the game were updated to provide some solutions to ideas surrounding property values, social media values and player location in the new game design