We present steps toward a conceptual framework for tangible user interfaces. We introduce the MCRpd interaction model for tangible interfaces, which relates the role of physical and digital representations, physical control, and underlying digital models. This model serves as a foundation for identifying and discussing several key characteristics of tangible user interfaces. We identify a number of systems exhibiting these characteristics, and situate these within 12 application domains. Finally, we discuss tangible interfaces in the context of related research themes, both within and outside of the human-computer interaction domain.

/pdf/emerging-frameworks-for-tangible-user-interfaces-254dznxose.pdf

Emerging frameworks for tangible user interfaces

There has been increasing recognition of the importance of informal interactions in organizations, but research examining the effects of the physical environment on informal interaction has produced contradictory results and practical attempts to control the level of informal interaction by design have been marked by unintended consequences. Drawing on a qualitative study of informal interactions observed in photocopier rooms in three organizations, this paper builds on the work of ecological psychologist James Gibson to develop a theory of the affordances of informal interaction. The affordances of an environment are the possibilities for action called forth by it to a perceiving subject. Research on affordances has typically focused on the affordances of individual behavior. We introduce the notion of social affordances and identify the social and physical characteristics that produce the propinquity, privacy, and social designation necessary for an environment to afford informal interactions. The theor...

/pdf/photocopiers-and-water-coolers-the-affordances-of-informal-3opambhaah.pdf

Photocopiers and Water-coolers: The Affordances of Informal Interaction:

Air traffic control is a complex, safety-critical activity, with well-established and successful work practices. Yet many attempts to automate the existing system have failed because controllers remain attached to a key work artifact: the paper flight strip. This article describes a four-month intensive study of a team of Paris en-route controllers in order to understand their use of paper flight strips. The article also describes a comparison study of eight different control rooms in France and the Netherlands. Our observations have convinced us that we do not know enough to simply get rid of paper strips, nor can we easily replace the physical interaction between controllers and paper strips.These observationshighlight the benefits of strips, including qualities difficult to quantify and replicate in new computer systems. Current thinking offers two basic alternatives: maintaining the existing strips without computer support and bearing the financial cost of limiting the air traffic, or replacing the strips with automated versions, which offer potential benefits in terms of increased efficiency through automation, but unknown risks through radical change of work practices. We conclude with a suggestion for a third alternative: to maintain the physical strips, but turn them into the interface to the computer. This would allow controllers to build directly upon their existing, safe work practices with paper strips, while offering them a gradual path for incorporating new computer-based functions. Augmented paper flight strips allow us to take advantage of uniquely human skills in the physical world, and allows us to leave the user interface and its subsequent evolution in the hands of the people most responsible, the air traffic controllers themselves.

http://www.hcitang.org/uploads/Teaching/p311-mackay.pdf

Is paper safer? The role of paper flight strips in air traffic control

We describe OctoPocus, an example of a dynamic guide that combines on-screen feedforward and feedback to help users learn, execute and remember gesture sets. OctoPocus can be applied to a wide range of single-stroke gestures and recognition algorithms and helps users progress smoothly from novice to expert performance. We provide an analysis of the design space and describe the results of two experi-ments that show that OctoPocus is significantly faster and improves learning of arbitrary gestures, compared to con-ventional Help menus. It can also be adapted to a mark-based gesture set, significantly improving input time compared to a two-level, four-item Hierarchical Marking menu.

https://www.lri.fr/~mbl/Stanford/CS477/papers/Octopocus-UIST2008.pdf

OctoPocus: a dynamic guide for learning gesture-based command sets

Paper Augmented Digital Documents (PADDs) are digital documents that can be manipulated either on a computer screen or on paper. PADDs, and the infrastructure supporting them, can be seen as a bridge between the digital and the paper worlds. As digital documents, PADDs are easy to edit, distribute and archive; as paper documents, PADDs are easy to navigate, annotate and well accepted in social settings. The chimeric nature of PADDs make them well suited for many tasks such as proofreading, editing, and annotation of large format document like blueprints.We are presenting an architecture which supports the seamless manipulation of PADDs using today's technologies and reports on the lessons we learned while implementing the first PADD system.

/pdf/paper-augmented-digital-documents-1sd6wdf5hg.pdf

Paper augmented digital documents

This paper describes our exploration of a design space for an augmented reality prototype. We began by observing air traffic controllers and their interactions with paper flight strips. We then worked with a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and controllers over a period of a year to brainstorm and prototype ideas for enhancing paper flight strips, We argue that augmented reality is more promising (and simpler to implement) than the current strategies that seek to replace flight strips with keyboard/monitor interfaces. We also argue that an exploration of the design space, with active participation from the controllers, is essential not only for designing particular artifacts, but also for understanding the strengths and limitations of augmented reality in general.

/pdf/reinventing-the-familiar-exploring-an-augmented-reality-4uyf3dmukd.pdf

Lionel Médini

Papers

Reinventing the familiar: exploring an augmented reality design space for air traffic control