Gerard Hollemans

Tangible interaction in tabletop games: studying iconic and symbolic play pieces

In this paper, a study is described which investigates differences in game experience between the use of iconic and symbolic tangibles in digital tabletop interaction. To enable this study, a new game together with two sets of play pieces (iconic and symbolic) was developed and used in an experiment with 30 participants. In this experiment, the understanding of the game, the understanding of the play pieces and the fun experience were tested. Both the group who played with iconic play pieces and the group who played with symbolic play pieces were proven to have a comparable fun experience and understanding of the game. However, the understanding of the play pieces was higher in the iconic group and a large majority of both groups preferred to play with iconic play pieces rather then symbolic play pieces.

Headphones with touch control

The Touch Headphones are meant for portable music players and aim to present an improvement to the conventional remote control in the headphone wire, and a solution for controls on wireless in-ear type headphones. Two capacitive touch sensors per earpiece sense when earpieces are being tapped on, and being put in or out.

Acceptable operating force for buttons on in-ear type headphones

The touch headphones are a solution for providing playback and volume controls on in-ear type headphones. One of the issues with placing controls on earpieces is that applied pressure is transferred to the inner ear, which potentially creates discomfort. The experiment described in this short paper shows that conventional button switches are not well accepted. Users preferred to operate a button on an earpiece with a force of around 85 grams.