Interactions - March/April 2011

thetics of movement in bodily interaction with products. TEI allows us to explore questions of embodiment through practical experiments.

interactions, Not interfaces

When we were setting up the TEI conference, we initially had long discussions about which title to choose. At the time, one of the main questions was whether to use “interface” or “interaction,” both indicating a somewhat different perspective and intellectual tradition. While Tangible User Interfaces had become an MIT trademark, designers had begun to use the term “tangible interaction.” I had also argued in one of my own papers that the emphasis should be on the design of the interaction not the interface, putting interaction dynamics and qualities into the foreground of attention [ 14]. Using the word “interaction” further encourages thinking of the tangible system as part of a larger ecology and located in a specific context. We felt that “tangible interaction” would bring together both perspectives and provide more openness, allowing for evolution of the field. The adoption of this umbrella term has supported the development of a larger interdisciplinary research community (the TEI conference series), but as a downside, results in some ambivalence as to where to draw the line between tangible interaction and other areas.

Meanwhile the conference has added “embodied” to the “tangible and embedded” title, reflecting the growing role of movement-based interaction and psychological or philosophical aspects of embodiment. Whole-body interaction is a new trend in HCI and ubiquitous computing as new technologies like the Wii, wireless motion tracking, and image-processing software have

[ 4] One of my favorite books that starts to answer these questions is F.R. Wilson’s The Hand — How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture. This starts to construct an argument about the human urge to be active and creative with one’s hands.

[ 5] Jacob, R.J.K., Girouard, A., Hirshfield, L.M. Horn, M.S., Shaer, O., Solovey, E. T., and Zigelbaum, J. Reality-based interaction: A framework for post-WIMP interfaces. Proc. of the 26th Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. (Florence, Italy, Apr. 5-10) ACM, New York, 2008, 201–210

[ 6] H. Böhme. Playdoyer für das niedrige. Der tastsinn im gefüge der sinne. G. Gebauer (ed). Anthropologie. Reclam: Leipzig, Germany, 1998

[ 7] Modern day psychology has started to question the assumption that most of our senses are receptive, and begun to study the perception-action relation (enactive perception defines that perception is always active) as well as interrelations between the senses, uncovering e.g. how visual information can override auditory perception (the McGurk effect) and the plasticity of our perceptual system (the rubberhand illusion,) which even allows for sensory substitution or new senses (such as feeling magnetic north via a vibrating belt).

[ 8] Becker, B. Marking and crossing borders: Bodies, touch, and contact in cyberspace. Body, Space and Technology 3, 2 (2003).

[ 9] In many science areas we find a dispute about determinism, whether it is technological versus social determinism (on the development of technology) or social versus genetic/biologic determination of intelligence and gender roles (“nature or nurture”). [ 10] Dourish, P. Where the Action Is. The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. MI T Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001.

[ 11] McCarthy, J., and Wright, P. Technology as Experience. MI T Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004

[ 12] Twenebowa Larssen, A, Robertson, T., and Edwards, J. The feel dimension of technology interaction: exploring tangibles through movement and touch. Proc. of the First International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction. (Baton Rouge, LA, Feb. 15-17). ACM, New York, 2007, 271-278.

[ 13] Hummels, C., Overbeeke, K.C., and Klooster, S. Move to get moved: A search for methods, tools and knowledge to design for expressive and rich movement-based interaction. Personal Ubiquitous Comput 1, 8 (2007), 677–690.

[ 14] Hornecker, E., and Buur. J. Getting a grip
on tangible interaction: A framework on physical
space and social interaction. Proc. of the SIGCHI
Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems. (Montreal, Canada, Apr. 22-27). ACM, New
York, 2006, 437-446.

greatly increased our capabilities for using body movement as input.

A focus on physical manipulation and movement-based interaction takes Ishii’s early credo serious of bringing some of the richness of interaction we have with physical devices back into our interaction with digital content, exploring the many facets of human sensory experience. An interesting development is while tangible interfaces are often portrayed as intuitive and easy to use, the advocates of movement-based interaction stress aesthetics and skill. We are most happy when we feel we perform an activity skillfully and gracefully even if it took us a painfully long time to get to this point. Tangible and embodied interaction can thus be a mindful activity that builds upon the innate intelligence of human bodies.

Epilogue

This forum aims to provide a glimpse of the discussions and approaches in TEI, reflecting the diversity of the field and the field’s interest in the role of physicality in interaction. I hope you are looking forward as much as I am to the articles to follow, exploring this rich and diverse field.

Additional historical and Introductory Literature of note H. Ishii. The tangible user interface and its evolution. Commun. ACM 51, 6 (June 2008), 32–36. O. Shaer, E. Hornecker. Tangible user interfaces: Past, present and future directions. Foundations and Trends in HCI 3, 1-2 (2010),1-138 D. O’Sullivan and T. Igoe. Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers. Muska and Lipman, Boston, 2004.

End notEs

[ 1] Wellner, P., Mackay, W., and Gold, R. Computer-augmented environments. Back to the real world. Commun. ACM 36, 7 (July 1993), 24–26. [ 2] Baskinger, M. and Gross, M. Tangible interaction = form + computing. interactions 17, 1 (2010). [ 3] Ishii, H., and Ullmer, B. Tangible bits: Towards seamless Interfaces between people, bits and atoms. Proc. of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. (Atlanta, GA, Mar. 22-27). ACM, New York, 1997, 234–241.

About thE Author

Eva Hornecker is a lecturer at
the department of computer
and information science at the
University of Strathclyde in
Glasgow. Her research includes
a particular interest in issues
of social interaction and collaboration in these
contexts.