Excerpt from Productive Interaction Paper

Excerpt from Phil’s Productive Interaction paper. Original Paper: productive_interaction.pdf

Principles and techniques

Productive interaction requires a different approach to design, and a different view of the audience. To help frame these differences, we can look at the development of productive interaction systems through four major vectors:

• Content: Information, narrative elements, meanings and sensations as communicated in text, image, video, sound, tactile and other modes.
• Context: The integrated presentation of content in form, decoration, attitude, organization, selection, values, and experiences.
• Affordance: The handles that enable the audience to work with and manipulate the content and context.
• Audience: The users as integral elements of the total system, who operate it through the affordances, and who create the final expressions.

Read the rest of this entry »

A taxonomy for and analysis of tangible interfaces

By Kenneth P. Fishkin
Personal and Ubiquitous Computing (2004) 8: 347–358 

Abstract 

There have been many research efforts devoted to tangible user interfaces (TUIs), but it has proven difficult to create a definition or taxonomy that allows us to compare and contrast disparate research efforts, integrate TUIs with conventional interfaces, or suggest design principles for future efforts. To address this problem, we present a taxonomy, which uses metaphor and embodiment as its two axes. This 2D space treats tangibility as a spectrum rather than a binary quantity. The further from the origin, the more ‘‘tangible’’ a system is. We show that this spectrum-based taxonomy offers multiple advantages. It unifies previous categorizations and definitions, integrates the notion of ‘‘calm computing,’’ reveals a previously un-noticed trend in the field, and suggests design principles appropriate for different areas of the spectrum.

a-taxonomy-for-tangible-interfaces

Bill Gaver’s Technology Affordances

By Bill Gaver
Proceedings of CHI’91, (New Orleans, Lousiana, April 28 – May 2, 1991), ACM, New York, pp. 79-84.

Speculation, Serendipity and Studio Anybody

By Lisa Grocott
MIT Press, 2004

To state that I once hated graphic design is neither, provocative nor original. Many graphic designers before me, have felt the physical and creative malaise I experienced after twelve-hour days of mouse-clicking week in, week out. This chapter describes the creative equivalent of a recovery program for disenchanted designers. This story narrates how my colleagues and I conceived of an ongoing research project, that positioned our studio practice as the research subject, our professional dissatisfaction as the primary issue and calling for creative speculation within the workplace as our key argument.

Speculation, Serendipity, and Studio Anybody

Affordances for Manipulation of Physical versus Digital Media on Interactive Surfaces

By Lucia Terrenghi, David Kirk, Abigail Sellen, Shahram Izadi
May 2007

ABSTRACT

This work presents the results of a comparative study in which we investigate the ways manipulation of physical versus digital media are fundamentally different from one another. Participants carried out both a puzzle task and a photo sorting task in two different modes: in a physical 3-dimensional space and on a multi-touch, interactive tabletop in which the digital items resembled their physical counterparts in terms of appearance and behavior. By observing the interaction behaviors of 12 participants, we explore the main differences and discuss what this means for designing interactive surfaces which use aspects of the physical world as a design resource.

Affordances for Manipulation of Physical versus Digital Media on Interactive Surfaces

Better Living Through Taxonomies

By Heather Hedden
Digital Web Magazine
February 2008

Large websites and intranets can benefit from improved methods of search and navigation. These include site maps, A-Z indexes, sophisticated search engines, and generally improved navigational design—and playing a potential role in all of these methods is well-planned taxonomy.

better-living-through-taxonomies

Taxonomies of Input

By Bill Buxton
January 2009

INTRODUCTION
Traditionally, input devices have been discussed in terms of their mechanical and electrical properties (Foley & Van Dam, 1982; Sherr, 1988). Discussions centre on “joysticks,” “trackballs,” and “mice,” for example. Several studies have attempted to evaluate the technologies from the perspective of human performance. Many of these are summarized in Greenstein and Arnaut (1988) and Milner (1988). A common problem with such studies, however, is that they are often overly device-specific. While they may say something about a particular device in a particular task, many do not contribute significantly to the development of a general model of human performance. (There are exceptions, of course, such as Card, English and Burr, 1978.) With the objective of isolating more fundamental issues, some researchers have attempted to categorize input technologies and/or techniques along dimensions more meaningful than simply “joystick” or “trackball.” The underlying assumption in such efforts is that better abstractions can lead us from phenomenological descriptions to more general models, and hence better analogies.

Taxonomies of Input