The Tactile Experience

The new element in design is software, a fundamentally abstract and disembodied way to prescribe behavior. In the past, industrial designers set the stage for interaction and behavior by making decisions about physical form and materials. Now the designer also programs the object’s interactive behavior. The simplest program relates inputs directly to outputs (“When the door is open, the lights blink”). Usually, though, software is a more subtle model of the design in use. For example, a state-machine model looks at different states of the design in use and transitions between states. In one state, a clock displays the time; in another state, it can be set. A sensor on the clock— typically, but not necessarily, a button—triggers transitions between the two states.

Fueled by the enthusiasm of
artists, hobbyists, DIY hackers
and by the interaction-design
community, new hardware tool
kits and platforms make it eas-
ier to build and program work-
ing prototypes of products with
embedded electronics. An early
well-known kit was Phidgets;
popular today in the design
community is the Arduino
family of microcontroller
boards, including the Lilypad,
engineered for embedding in
textiles. Hardware design envi-
ronments such as Fritzing and
a host of programming environ-
ments such as Pd and Funnel
invite designers to work directly
with electronics and code. Tool
kits and platforms are crucial,
and as tangible interaction
design moves forward, we will
see more “designerly” languages
and tools for hardware proto-
typing and programming.

January + February 2010

interactions

Where Do Tangible
Interaction Designers Fit?

Many first-generation tangibles
have been whimsical and artis-
tic explorations of what new
technology can do. Some are
simple; some, more complex.
Some are elegant embeddings
of display and projection. Some
celebrate new materials. Some
add sensing in clever ways. The
field is still wide open, but one
thing is clear: We’re likely to
see more, not less, program-
ming in things, and a lot more
experimentation.

Faced with the integration of form and computation, researchers and practitioners are asking new questions about the aesthetic qualities of interaction and the impact of form on human behavior. As tangible interaction design matures, designers will focus more on the meaning and impact of form on people. This, of course, echoes traditional human-centered design approaches, but computation provides the opportunity to design adaptive, responsive, and highly interactive products and systems.

Tangible interaction design-
ers are the new “Leonardo/
Edison” types. As makers
they are equally at home in
the worlds of material and

• Figure 7. Eric Schweikardt’s toy blocks snap together to construct working robots. Black blocks are sensors; white blocks, effectors; and colored blocks operate on data. The configuration of blocks determines the robot’s behavior. Modular Robotics LLC is bringing the kit, designed at Carnegie Mellon, to market.