FEATURE
Ref lections:
A Year Spent with
an Interactive Desk
John Hardy

Lancaster University | [e-mail] November + December 2012

In 1991, Pierre Wellner introduced the world to the DigitalDesk [ 1]. This was the first attempt at revolutionizing office work by integrating the best of the tangible and digital realms. Since then, technology has developed: The Internet has connected us, and large interactive screens are fast becoming a fixture of the modern workplace. Yet despite the romance between computer and desk, the details of a possible relationship have remained elusive and curiously vague.

Interactive desks are an idea
with a rich history in research.
Much of this has focused on
short, walk-up-and-use sce-
narios that focus on evaluating
specific aspects of interaction.
Subsequently, this has led the
technology away from the office
and into niche roles suited to spe-
cific problem domains. Even today,
21 years later, it is rare to find
studies that look at the longer-
term impact of interactive desks
for general productivity [ 2, 3]. As
a result, we lack a contextualized
understanding of the interac-
tive desk and its potential roles
in the modern office. Given the
importance of and trust placed in
computers today, are we ready for
interactive desks to be considered
a serious replacement for the per-
sonal computer? Or, critically, are
they expensive toys that lack sig-
nificant transformative benefits?

Wii TUIO transformed data from the Wii remotes into multi-touch events the PC could recognize goo.gl/rK75Y

interactions