DESIGNING KINETIC INTERACTIONS
FOR ORGANIC USER INTERFACES
Considering the future of kinetic design in user interfaces.
BY AMANDA PARKES, IVAN POUPYREV, AND HIROSHI ISHII
We are surrounded by a sea of motion: everything around us is in a
state of continuous movement. We experience numerous and varied kinds of motions: voluntarily motions of our own body as we
walk; passive motion induced by natural forces, such as the rotation of windmill blades in the wind or the fall of a leaf from a tree
due to the force of gravity; physical transformations such as the growth of a flower
or the inflation of balloon; and the mechanical motion of the machines and mechanisms that populate our living spaces.
It is hardly surprising then that humans have always been perplexed and fascinated
by the nature of motion. In 500 BC, the Greek philosopher Parmenides declared that
all motions are an illusion. Experimental and theoretical studies of motion by Galileo
and Newton have laid the foundation of modern physics and modern science; and
Einstein’s general theory of relativity has explained movements on a cosmic scale.
Perhaps more than trying to understand motion, however, humans have always
been fascinated with producing artificial motion. While developments of machines
that transform energy into mechanical motion, in particular steam engines, underpinned the industrial revolution of the late 19th century, it was the development of
