Theory & Philosophy of TUIs

Brygg Ulmer [5] provides a snap definition of tangible interfaces as interfaces that “give physical form to digital information”. It is different from the HCI field at large in that there is an explicit focus on using the physical environment, encouraging humans to directly grasp and manipulate physical objects to affect virtual information. In essence, the focus of this field is to enable a user to place their attention on the system and the desired behaviours rather than how these were triggered [4].

Traditional HCI has never had this explicit focus undergirding its research, but rather has always seen it as another tool in its arsenal. This is because the fields within HCI are user-centric, focussing on the requirements of the end user and how to best facilitate meeting these needs. TUI, on the other hand, emphatically denies any dualistic approaches as foreign to the human, and champions the cause of embodied interaction. That is to say, physical (human) movements are more intuitive and ‘natural’ to a human than say, virtual intangible/invisible interactions (interacting with pixels).

Since my search for papers was based on Theory and Philosophy of Tangible Computing (and related fields), I thought it would be good to analyse and study reviews, frameworks, taxonomies etc. created by current practitioners in the field. Such ‘framework papers’ tend to provide a summary of the state-of-the-art when it comes to the theoretical underpinnings and practical outworking of the consensus within the practicing community.

With this in mind, I have selected three papers that present an abstract representation of the field, as it were. A framework paper is presented (Fernaeus et al. [2]), which maps changes in the HCI community with trends in the Tangible Computing community. Fernaeus et al. claim that the practice-turn, a phenomenon sweeping the HCI field is similarly affecting the field of Tangible Computing. They show four themes in tangible interaction research that support their claim.

Mazalek et al’s paper [3] was selected because of its contribution: listing current frameworks and philosophies in the tangible interaction community. Hornecker’s paper [1] is another framework paper, but interestingly, bemoans the lack of an existentialist theory on why TUI works in the first place, and why many of the elements (particularly in the way they affect collaboration).

References

[1] E. Hornecker, “A Design Theme for Tangible Interaction: Embodied Facilitation,” Ecscw 2005, pp. 23–43, 2005.
[2] Y. Fernaeus, J. Tholander, and M. Jonsson, “Towards a New set of Ideals : Consequences of the Practice Turn in Tangible Interaction,” Forum Am. Bar Assoc., vol. 1, no. 3/4, pp. 223–230, 2008.
[3] A. Mazalek and E. van den Hoven, “Framing tangible interaction frameworks,” Artif. Intell. Eng. Des. Anal. Manuf., vol. 23, no. 03, p. 225, 2009.
[4] D.G. Caicedo, “What are tangible user interfaces?” Online: http://www.bluehair.co/2010/05/what-are-tangible-user-interfaces-2/
[5] B. Ullmer and H. Ishii, “Emerging frameworks for tangible user interfaces,” IBM Syst. J., vol. 39, no. 3.4, pp. 915–931, 2001.