Eric Charles Harris

Ambient wood: designing new forms of digital augmentation for learning outdoors

Ubiquitous and mobile technologies provide opportunities for designing novel learning experiences that move out of the classroom. Information can be presented and interacted with in a variety of ways while exploring a physical environment. A key issue this raises is when, where, what and how much? Our research is concerned with the design, delivery and interaction of digital information when learning about ecology outdoors. We present a framework of the different forms of digital augmentation and the different processes by which they can be accessed. Using the framework, we designed an outdoors learning experience, aimed at encouraging students to carry out contextualized scientific enquiry and to reflect on their interactions. Pairs of 11-12 year olds explored a woodland and were presented at certain times with different forms of digital augmentation. Our study showed that this kind of exploration promoted interpretation and reflection at a number of levels of abstraction.

A conceptual framework for mixed reality environments: designing novel learning activities for young children

How do we conceptualize and design mixed reality environments (MREs)? Here we describe a first pass at a conceptual framework and use it to inform the design of different kinds of activities for children to experiment with. Our aim was to investigate how different MRE setups affected childrens exploratory behavior and their understanding of them. The familiar activity of color mixing was used: different setups were provided, where paint or light colors could be mixed, by using either physical tools, digital tools, or a combination of these. The findings of our study showed that novel mixes of physical and digital transforms engendered much exploration and reflection.

Things aren't what they seem to be: innovation through technology inspiration

How does designing for novel experiences with largely untried technologies get its inspiration? Here we report on a project whose goal was to promote learning through novel, playful visions of technologies. To this end, we experimented with a diversity of ambient and pervasive technologies to inspire and drive our design. Working as a large multi-disciplinary group of researchers and designers we developed novel and imaginative experiences for children. To crystallise our ideas we designed, implemented and experimented with a mixed reality adventure game, where children had to hunt an elusive, virtual creature called the Snark, in a large interactive environment. We describe our experiences, reflecting on the process of design inspiration in an area where so much remains unknown.

Motivating mobility: designing for lived motivation in stroke rehabilitation

How to motivate and support behaviour change through design is becoming of increasing interest to the CHI community. In this paper, we present our experiences of building systems that motivate people to engage in upper limb rehabilitation exercise after stroke. We report on participatory design work with four stroke survivors to develop a holistic understanding of their motivation and rehabilitation needs, and to construct and deploy engaging interactive systems that satisfy these. We reflect on the limits of motivational theories in trying to design for the lived experience of motivation and highlight lessons learnt around: helping people articulate what motivates them; balancing work, duty, fun; supporting motivation over time; and understanding the wider social context. From these we identify design guidelines that can inform a toolkit approach to support both scalability and personalisability.

Camping in the digital wilderness: tents and flashlights as interfaces to virtual worlds

A projection screen in the shape of a tent provides children with a shared immersive experience of a virtual world based on the metaphor of camping. RFID aerials at its entrances sense tagged children and objects as they enter and leave. Video tracking allows multiple flashlights to be used as pointing devices. The tent is an example of a traversable interface, designed for deployment in public spaces such as museums, galleries and classrooms.

The Periscope: supporting a computer enhanced field trip for children

AbstractThis paper describes an interactive device, the Periscope, designed to be used as an educational tool featured during a childrens digitally enhanced field trip in a woodland setting. The Periscope assembly, including a display and RFID equipped tangibles, is controlled using handles that enable it to be raised and rotated. The display is controlled by rotating the Periscope, or alternatively by twisting the handles. A set of tangibles, a collection of Petri dishes fitted with RFID tags, enable the children to carry out experiments with the results being shown on the display. Field trials are also outlined in which the effectiveness of this design is established. In conclusion, we discuss the aesthetic design issues raised by introducing digital technology into everyday environments.

The Ambient Horn: designing a novel audio-based learning experience

The Ambient Horn is a novel handheld device designed to support children learning about habitat distributions and interdependencies in an outdoor woodland environment. The horn was designed to emit non-speech audio sounds representing ecological processes. Both symbolic and arbitrary mappings were used to represent the processes. The sounds are triggered in response to the children’s location in certain parts of the woodland. A main objective was to provoke children into interpreting and reflecting upon the significance of the sounds in the context in which they occur. Our study of the horn being used showed the sounds to be provocative, generating much discussion about what they signified in relation to what the children saw in the woodland. In addition, the children appropriated the horn in creative ways, trying to ‘scoop’ up new sounds as they walked in different parts of the woodland.

Lessons for the future: experiences with the installation and use of today's domestic sensors and technologies

Domestic environments are receiving increasing attention as sites of deployment for pervasive technologies, as evidenced by the growing number of studies of homes and maturing technologies in prototype aware/smart homes. The challenge now is to move technologies out of purpose built homes into everyday environments in ways that will fit with existing buildings and the people who live in them. However, there are many aspects of this future vision that people live with right now in the form of sensors and technologies already in the home. We describe findings from three studies – in-home interviews, a questionnaire about home sensors, and interviews with commercial smart home installers – that explore current experiences with sensors and technologies in the home. These lead us to reflect on the implicit assumptions in, and future design directions for, pervasive research for the home.

Enhancing interactional synchrony with an ambient display

Nonverbal communication is an essential part of face-to-face social interaction, conveying information about emotion and interpersonal relationships. The rigorous sensing capabilities of pervasive technologies and the subtle nature of ambient technologies make them ideal to support the production of nonverbal communication in social interactions. In this paper we present a study using an ambient technology that supports nonverbal communication, and specifically nonverbal behaviours associated with rapport. We show that an ambient display can influence a participants nonverbal behaviour, and that participants are not aware of this change in their behaviour. We discuss these findings in terms of the design and ethical issues that it raises, and define an agenda for future work.

In my own words: configuration of tangibles, object interaction and children with autism

An Augmented Knights Castle (AKC) play set was adapted so that children with autism can configure programmable elements. This is compared with a non-configurable AKC. When the system is configurable, less solitary play and more cooperative play occurred. Configurability is a key factor in design for children with autism allowing greater individual control and more socially oriented behaviour. We suggest that tangibles provide a safety net for encouraging social interaction as they allow for a broad range of interaction styles.