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