Week 1 Research and Definitions

Analyzing the project brief and task at hand through defining terms.

'This semester un particular forcuses on the topics of social awareness, tangible interactions, use of assistive technologies and fundamentals of products that include electronic componentry.'

Assistive technology/ Adaptive technology(AT) is: a term that includes assistive, adaptive and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities. It also includes the process used in selecting, locating and using them. AT promotes greater independence by enabling people to perform tasks that they were formerly unable to accomplish. Providing enhancements to or changed methods of interacting with the technology needed to accomplish such tasks.



Tangible, synonyms: touchable, physical, substantial, perceptible, concrete

Tangible interactions represent systems that rely on:

• Tangibility/materiality
• Bodily/embodied interaction
• physical representation of data
• embeddedness in real space, and augmentation of physical spaces (improvement or enchancement)

Research questions:

• What is the user experience of tangible interaction?
• Why does tangible interaction work so well for users?
• How can we conceptualize the social aspects of tangible interaction?
• Which concepts can we employ and what perspectives take for analysing and evaluating systems?
• Which concepts can we employ and what perspectives take for analyzing and evaluating systems?
• Are there concepts that cn guide or inspire the design of new systems?

Examples of tangible interaction are:

• Haptic direct manipulation, with distinct tactile qualities.
• Spatial Interaction, interaction occurs by movement in space, our body is the reference point in space. 
• Embodied facilitation, refers to how the configuration of material objects and space affects and directs emerging group behavior.
• Expressive representation, focuses on the material and digital representations employed by tangible interaction systems, their expressiveness and legibility.

Source: http://www.ehornecker.de/TangiblesFramework.html

Important aspects to tangible interactions:

• All users get relevant access
• Are all representations logical, expressive and meaningful?
• Are there non-literal representations that transform the problem?
• Can the user interact with the relevant parts.

Sources that might be relevant for this project suggested by publisher on website (http://www.ehornecker.de/TangiblesFramework.html):

Eva Hornecker. Space and Place – Setting the Stage for Social Interaction. Position paper for ECSCW05 workshop 'Settings for Collaboration: the role of place
(this focuses on Spatial Interaction and Embodied Facilitation, putting the themes in context to the discussions about the space-place distinction - which in my view is purely theoretical, as human experience of space is always situated, spatial constraints directly influencing our perception of space and our behaviors - this is stuff for further work on)

Eva Hornecker, Paul Marshall, Nick Sheep Dalton, Yvonne Rogers (2008): Collaboration and Interference: Awareness with Mice or Touch Input. ACM CSCW 2008. San Diego. 167-176  (analysing effect of different types of 'access points' on awareness and coordination, following on on the DPPI paper)

www.tangint.org (community wiki on Tangibles - stopped updating around 2007 - just too much happening now!)

www.tei-conf.org (International conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction, in association with ACM)

Week 1 Brainstorming and exercises

Communication channels:

• Verbal (spoken language)
• Non-verbal (gestures, body-language, paralanguage etc.)
• Written language
• Symbols, icons
• Abstract (art, painting, sculpture)
• Music
• ...

Types of communication:

• dialogues 
• monologues
• speech to masses

- perhaps focus on other senses than vision for cues, such as smell, hearing, touch. Taste might be challenging to use for communication?

Brainstorming ideas:

• a baby monitor that recognises the different types of cries and communicates the baby's needs to the caretaker. E.g. the dipers light up when it's time to change, the bottle lights up when it's feeding time etc.
• a chip on the front of the car that communicates to other cars, indicating to the driver when they're driving to close to someone. It could also indicate where there is a high concentration of cars, so that the driver might change their route. 
• a key that tells the user who is at home or not at home, and when they entered or left (good for tracking children?)
• A dog collar that notices a dog's movements, so that the owner knows when the dog is scratching on the front door and it's time to walk the dog. 
• A handbag that notices when something is missing from a pocket, and can then tell others that the user left the key's at home or similar (e.g. husband can bring wife's keys to her).
• a toothbrush that detects cavities and communicates to the dentist that it is time to schedule an appointment.
• a cup with/bowl or similar with a built in thermometer, letting the user know if the drink is too hot, or a waiter that the food is hot enough to be sent out to the guests.
• a mould that shapes itself according to it's twin mold. E.g. user A is user B's boyfriend. User A hugs the mold, and user B can 'hug' the mold back. The mold's temperature should be adjusted by the user to 'feel real'
• a ball that changes temperature and colour according to mood, also lets you see what mood your friends are in.