COVER STORY
ences with systems, objects,
and places will resonate on
deeper visceral levels, tapping
into emotions and sparking new
relationships. This integration
leverages form to influence
human behavior in richer ways.
Adaptive, responsive, thinking—
yet physical—objects induce a
dialogue through gestures and
physical touch. They implore
us to relate to them as if they
were more “alive” than toast-ers and toothbrushes. Looking
through this lens reveals a
renewed outlook on traditional
industrial design that revisits
aspirations of early pioneers. It
positions designers as catalytic
agents for broader impact rather
than mere stylists for commodities. And it shifts the design
discourse again, as computation enables designers to make
objects do things they simply
couldn’t do before. A few years
ago, interaction design meant
solely screen-based digital
interactivity. Today interaction designers are called on to
be cross-platform, multidisciplinary problem solvers.
Tangible interaction is the
physical embodiment of com-
putation. Tangible interaction
practitioners, researchers, and
educators integrate knowledge
from many areas. They draw
upon traditional design, engi-
neering, computing, and robot-
ics in a mashup of skills and
methods—thinking and making
in physical form, electronics,
and code. As the field develops,
those who are adept in working
simultaneously in code and in
physical form will synthesize
new processes for developing
products. They will see and
work across the old disciplinary
boundaries.
• Figure 2: Primitive tool-like
forms focus on expressing
cues for interaction in physical
form. Hand ax and scraper by
Nathaniel Paffett-Lugassy.
• Figure 1: (left) This left-handed
Lower Paleolithic (Acheulian)
bifacial hand ax found at an
exposed site in northern Africa
dates back 1. 2 million–500,000
years ago. The purposeful design
of contoured surface and placement of indentations for the
hand demonstrates design to
afford grip and guide interaction.
Source: www.paleodirect.com