Tangible Computing: cool new stuff – HCI for Digital Civics 2015

How is Tangible, Physical and Embodied Computing different to other areas of HCI research?

Materiality or tangibility of digital world makes us wonder whether these developments are actually going backwards [2]. That is, digital developments have always focused on making our world more digital and providing digital solutions for real life issues. However, the increasing interest in tangible computing seems to be aiming at providing more tangible/physical methods for the digital world. Thus we might consider tangible computing as a conflicting area with other areas in computer science, especially ubiquitous computing and graphical user interfaces (GUI).

In ubiquitous computing, according to Weiser’s vision, the digital world was predicted to be invisible and integrated in all aspects of our lives. Although this “invisibility” might seem directly conflicting with the “tangibility”, however, both can be integrated in objects, where we have tangible manipulation but invisible computing within these objects.

The other area is GUI. Here as well, the integration of TUIs with GUIs (as in the Multi-Display Map) can provide even more usable and better user experience. A clear example of this integration is “Tangible Bits” which is a program by Tangible Media Group that combines the tangible world, “the world of atoms” and the digital world, “the world of bits”.[4] However this integration might require more developments and investments as research have yet to demonstrate any significant difference between TUIs and GUIs [3][1].

How you went about finding your papers for the session you are co-chairing.

I looked for the latest technologies and displays online, especially in YouTube. The key words I used were “ latest technology”, “latest display” and “tangible technology”. I found different technologies, not all of them represent tangible computing. However, I aimed for choosing three that represent or at least overlap with tangible computing. I also aimed for having three different subjects. Then, I picked three interesting technologies and used the ACM library to look for papers related to these technologies.

What your papers are and why you chose them.

a) “KIBO Robot Demo: Engaging Young Children in Programming and Engineering”. By : A. Sullivan, M. Elkin, M. Umaschi Bers.

This paper describes KIBO, a robot was developed for young children to help them learn technology and engineering not only in a tangible way but also in playful and easy way for learning.

I chose this paper as I find that it represents what I consider a good example of “tangible computing”, without the use of computers, tablets or screens. It offers a wider scope for those interested in developing more tangible computing projects beyond the limited focus of tangible displays.

b) “Multi-Display Map Touring with Tangible Widget”. By: M. Piovesana, H.Wu, Y.Chen, L.Chan, N.Yu, Y.Hung.

This paper presents a map system, which consists of a table view and a screen view to display the map view and the street view respectively. The table map works with a tangible widget, which can be placed by the users on any point on the map to show the street view on the screen.

I found that the combination of the tangible piece and the graphical interface in one project demonstrate the possibilities of “overcoming the conflicts” between the two areas. This might be an inspiration for designers to take both aspects in consideration for future projects.

c) “One-Handed Bend Interactions with Deformable Smartphones”. By: A. Girouard, J. Lo, M. Riyadh, F. Daliri, A. Eady and J. Pasquero.

This paper proposes a solution for the difficulties of using large-screened phones with one hand. The solution proposed is to make phones “foldable” by one hand in order to provide easier and more usable experience.

Although this might not directly represent tangible computing I found that the use of a tangible concept like “folding things” broaden the concept of “tangible computing” and makes us consider these little aspects in our natural interaction with things and how to apply them to the design of computers (and phones) to make devices easier and more natural to interact with.

References:

1- B.Ullmer. Brygg Ullmer’s PhD defence video. 2002

2- E. Hornecker. Tangible Interaction.

3- J.Ma, L. Sindorf, I.Liao, J. Frazier. Using a Tangible Versus a Multi-touch Graphical User Interface to Support Data Exploration at a Museum Exhibit. 2015

4- P. Dourish. Where the action is. 2004

Jan Kučera says:

November 22, 2015 at 8:03 pm

Hey Tag! I wonder how many physical buttons your phone has and assuming less than it used to, whether you consider it more or less tangible than before, and, whether you consider it a step forward or backward.

The KIBO paper is interesting because Dan had a similar paper, Social Robot Toolkit: Tangible Programming for Young Children by Gordon et al. from MIT. They were aiming for children aged 4-8, and used vinyl stickers to program the “robot” with vision capabilities. Your paper, while aiming at the same age, uses physical cubes with locking mechanism, more complicated commands and bar codes. They even say that when they made it too easy, the children were not engaged sufficiently (although their data on trials with children are not presented that much). I am a bit confused about that, did Sullivan just have much more clever children? I would be interested in your opinion on these differences. And the same question I had for Dan, how do you feel about teach pre-school children to program robots?

If you are interested in folding things, Vergetaal’s group at Human Media Lab is quite into that, check for example PaperFold or any of their flexible stuff.

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