Tangibles: Cool things of the past and the future

Tangible computing has a unique approach to computing in that it does not attempt to fit everything in to a computer or screen. It differs from ubiquitous computing that we encounter in our daily lives in that rather than trying to fit things all in a screen on our tangibles aim at allowing users to physically grasp data. It is more intuitive than other technologies. I remember  when Playsation 1 came out and we would twist our hands when playing racing games as if we are driving. Tangible computing wants to pull the digital world out the real world rather than placing the user in a virtual world. It integrates the affordances (quality of the object r environment that allows an action to take place i.e. a lever allows you to raise another object up as you pull down on it) of an object or an environment in to the design. Therefore, rather than exploring just the users’ emotions in product design the design incorporates physical interactions with the object/environment. It has bridged with other fields such as augmented reality, multi-touch surfaces, ambient displays and embodied user interfaces. It differs from other computing fields in that there is no single locus of interaction, no enforced sequentiality, and uses affordances. It aims at making interaction with digital data to be more like interaction with the real world.

 

Since we were given the topic of histories and futures of tangible computing I started by searching for a systematic review as it would encompass or at least reference to the history of tangible user interfaces. Based on my reading of the systematic review that I found, I saw the different research that represent the present work in the field and then consequently chose a paper related to health as that is where my interest lies.  Lastly I searched for the most recent (published in the year 2015) publications on tangible computing and TUIs and selected one that is related to education as there is a current movement to use technologies in transforming education.

 

I selected the following three papers to discuss the histories and futures of tangible computing:

 

[1]      Parmar, V. et al. 2009. Tangible user interface for increasing social interaction among rural women. Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction – TEI ’09. (2009), 139.

[2]      Qi, Y. 2015. TanProStory : A Tangible Programming System for Children ’ s Storytelling. (2015), 1001–1006.

Papers [1] and [2] represent the present work in tangible user interfaces (TUIs). The field has lent itself to other fields and therefore the papers represent tangible computing being used in health and education. In study [1] the authors realized the need to develop a tangible user interface that is based on culturally relevant metaphors and leverages social interaction better disseminate health information. In study [2] a TUI was used to teach children object-oriented programming by providing them with blocks that they can connect together to create characters and then see them play out on an aniumated screen in real time.

[3]      Shaer, O. 2009. Tangible User Interfaces: Past, Present, and Future Directions. Foundations and Trends® in Human–Computer Interaction. 3, 1-2 (2009), 1–137.

I chose paper [3] because it is a systematic review that goes through the history of tangible user interfaces marking the movement away from WIMP interfaces. They indicate that slot machines were the first tangible interfaces and the work of Aish and Frazer with 3D modeling were corner stones in the movement towards tangible devices. The paper also discusses the new research directions the field is taking and that is actuation, organic user interfaces and tangible resources for action.