The design of personal ambient displays

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-59).The goal of this thesis is to investigate the design of personal ambient displays. These are small, physical devices worn to display information to a person in a subtle, persistent, and private manner. They can be small enough to be carried in a pocket, worn as a watch, or even adorned like jewelry. In my implementations, information is displayed solely through tactile modalities such as thermal change (heating and cooling), movement (shifting and vibration), and change of shape (expanding, contracting, and deformation). Using a tactile display allows information to be kept private and reduces the chance of overloading primary visual and auditory activities. The display can remain ambient, transmitting information in the background of a person's perception through simple, physical means. The specific focus of this thesis is to create a number of these tactile displays, to identify and implement applications they can serve, and to evaluate aspects of their effectiveness. I have created a group of small, wireless objects that can warm up and cool down or gently move or shift. Users can reconfigure each display so that information sources like stock data or the activity of people on the internet are mapped to these different tactile modalities. Furthermore, in this thesis I consider the implications that human perception have on the design of these displays and examine potential application areas for further implementations.Craig Alexander Wisneski.S.M

Evaluation of variables for the communication of uncertainties using peripheral awareness displays

The communication of system uncertainties may be key for overcoming challenges related to overtrust in automated driving. Existing approaches are limited to conveying uncertainties using visual displays in the instrument cluster. This requires operators to regularly monitor the display in order to perceive changes which impedes the execution of nondriving related tasks and thereby degrades the user experience. This study evaluates variables for the communication of uncertainties using peripheral awareness displays, considering changes in brightness, hue, position, size, pulse frequency, and movement speed. All variables were assessed in terms of how well participants can distinguish different instances, how logical they are, and how interrupting to a secondary task. With the exception of changes in position, all variables were ranked highly in terms of logic while changes in pulse frequency were perceived as most interrupting. The results inform the development of unobtrusive interfaces for uncertainty communication

The ASPECTA toolkit : affordable Full Coverage Displays

Full Coverage Displays (FCDs) cover the interior surface of an entire room with pixels. FCDs make possible many new kinds of immersive display experiences - but current technology for building FCDs is expensive and complex, and software support for developing full-coverage applications is limited. To address these problems, we introduce ASPECTA, a hardware configuration and software toolkit that provide a low-cost and easy-to-use solution for creating full coverage systems. We outline ASPECTA’s (minimal) hardware requirements and describe the toolkit’s architecture, development API, server implementation, and configuration tool; we also provide a full example of how the toolkit can be used. We performed two evaluations of the toolkit: a case study of a research system built with ASPECTA, and a laboratory study that tested the effectiveness of the API. Our evaluations, as well as multiple examples of ASPECTA in use, show how ASPECTA can simplify configuration and development while still dramatically reducing the cost for creators of applications that take advantage of full-coverage displays.Postprin

Bilateral Assessment of Functional Tasks for Robot-assisted Therapy Applications

This article presents a novel evaluation system along with methods to evaluate bilateral coordination of arm function on activities of daily living tasks before and after robot-assisted therapy. An affordable bilateral assessment system (BiAS) consisting of two mini-passive measuring units modeled as three degree of freedom robots is described. The process for evaluating functional tasks using the BiAS is presented and we demonstrate its ability to measure wrist kinematic trajectories. Three metrics, phase difference, movement overlap, and task completion time, are used to evaluate the BiAS system on a bilateral symmetric (bi-drink) and a bilateral asymmetric (bi-pour) functional task. Wrist position and velocity trajectories are evaluated using these metrics to provide insight into temporal and spatial bilateral deficits after stroke. The BiAS system quantified movements of the wrists during functional tasks and detected differences in impaired and unimpaired arm movements. Case studies showed that stroke patients compared to healthy subjects move slower and are less likely to use their arm simultaneously even when the functional task requires simultaneous movement. After robot-assisted therapy, interlimb coordination spatial deficits moved toward normal coordination on functional tasks

Physio-Stacks: Supporting Communication with Ourselves and Others via Tangible, Modular Physiological Devices

International audienceOur physiological activity reflects our inner workings. However, we are not always aware of it in full detail. Physiological devices allow us to monitor and create adaptive systems and support introspection. Given that these devices have access to sensitive data, it is vital that users have a clear understanding of the internal mechanisms (extrospection), yet the underlying processes are hard to understand and control, resulting in a loss of agency. In this work, we focus on bringing the agency back to the user, by using design guidelines based on principles of honest communication and driven by positive activities. To this end, we conceived a tangible, modular approach for the construction of physiological interfaces that can be used as a prototyping toolkit by designers and researchers, or as didactic tools by educators and pupils. We show the potential of such an approach with a set of examples, supporting introspection, dialog, music creation, and play

Classifying Tangible User Interfaces with Cladistics: Criteria and Forms for a Collaborative Inventory

Les interfaces utilisateur tangibles sont de formes variées et leur conception est souvent dédiée et unique. Les spécimens se multiplient et cerner le contour des possibles est aujourd’hui difficile. Or, les approches d’innovation dite ouverte demandent d’identifier et d’être inspiré par des solutions antérieures. En considérant la filiation entre les systèmes technologiques, nous reprenons une méthode de classification systématique issue de la biologie pour l’appliquer en IHM : la classification cladistique. Le but est de proposer une approche originale pour caractériser la diversité des interfaces tangibles. Cet article présente notre démarche pour établir une liste de critères et le développement d’une application web pour un inventaire collaboratif.Tangible user interfaces take various forms : their design is often unique. As the number of systems is increasing, as understanding the whole becomes difficult. Yet, open innovation approaches require identifying and being inspired by previous solutions. By taking into account the line of descent of technological systems, we use a classification method from biology in HCI : the cladistic classification. The aim is to develop an original approach to characterize the variety of tangible interfaces. This paper presents our approach to develop a list of criteria and to develop a web application for the purpose of a collaborative inventory

PingPongPlus: Design of an Athletic-Tangible Interface for Computer-Supported Cooperative Play

This paper introduces a novel interface for digitallyaugmented cooperative play. We present the concept of the "athletic-tangible interface," a new class of interaction which uses tangible objects and full-body motion in physical spaces with digital augmentation. We detail the implementation of PingPongPlus, a "reactive ping-pong table", which features a novel sound-based ball tracking technology. The game is augmented and transformed with dynamic graphics and sound, determined by the position of impact, and the rhythm and style of play. A variety of different modes of play and initial experiences with PingPongPlus are also described. Keywords tangible interface, enhanced reality, augmented reality, interactive surface, athletic interaction, kinesthetic interaction, computer-supported cooperative play. INTRODUCTION When an expert plays ping-pong, a well-used paddle becomes transparent, and allows a player to concentrate on the task -- playing ping-pong. The good fit of grasp is vit..

ambientROOM: Integrating Ambient Media with Architectural Space

We envision that the physical architectural space we inhabit will be a new form of interface between humans and digital information. This paper and video present the design of the ambientROOM, an interface to information for processing in the background of awareness. This information is displayed through various subtle displays of light, sound, and movement. Physical objects are also employed as controls for these "ambient media." Keywords awareness, attention, periphery, ambient media, graspable media, physical interface INTRODUCTION Humans have highly sophisticated capacities for processing multiple information streams. While a particular source of information may occupy the "foreground" of our awareness, many additional sources may concurrently be monitored in the "background." For example, we may have a sense of the weather outside from ambient cues such as light, temperature, sound, and air flow from nearby windows. We may also have an idea of the activities of colleagues in t..