Joe Marshall

Uncomfortable interactions

We argue for deliberately and systematically creating uncomfortable interactions as part of powerful cultural experiences. We identify the potential benefits of uncomfortable interactions under the general headings of entertainment, enlightenment and sociality. We then review artworks and performances that have employed discomfort, including two complementary examples from the worlds of entertainment and performance. From this, we articulate a suite of tactics for designing four primary forms of discomfort referred to as visceral, cultural, control and intimate. We discuss how moments of discomfort need to be embedded into an overall experience which requires a further consideration of the dramatic acts of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement. Finally, we discuss an ethical framework for uncomfortable interactions which leads us to revisit key issues of consent, withdrawal, privacy and risk.

Breath control of amusement rides

Emerging robotic technologies are enabling the control of individual seats on rollercoasters and other thrill rides. We explore the potential of breathing as an effective and engaging way of driving this. Observations and interviews from trials of an enhanced bucking bronco ride show that breath-control is fun, challenging and intelligible, and reveal riders-x tactics as they battled the machine. We conclude that breath control is feasible and appropriate for controlling rides, unpack its important characteristics, and consider how it might be built into future ride systems. We argue that the combination of voluntary and involuntary factors in breathing is especially appealing for controlling rides as it balances game-like elements of skill and learning against the thrill of surrendering control to the machine.

Performance-Led Research in the Wild

We explore the approach of performance-led research in the wild in which artists drive the creation of novel performances with the support of HCI researchers that are then deployed and studied at public performance in cultural settings such as galleries, festivals and on the city streets. We motivate the approach and then describe how it consists of three distinct activities -- practice, studies and theory -- that are interleaved in complex ways through nine different relationships. We present a historical account of how the approach has evolved over a fifteen-year period, charting the evolution of a complex web of projects, papers, and relationships between them. We articulate the challenges of pursuing each activity as well as overarching challenges of balancing artistic and research interests, flexible management of relationships, and finally ethics.

Experiments in 3D interaction for mobile phone AR

In this paper we present an evaluation of several different techniques for virtual object positioning and rotation on a mobile phone. We compare gesture input captured by the phones front camera, to tangible input, keypad interaction and phone tilting in increasingly complex positioning and rotation tasks in an AR context. Usability experiments found that tangible input techniques are best for translation tasks, while keypad input is best for rotation tasks. Implications for the design of mobile phone 3D interfaces are presented as well as directions for future research.

Pressing the Flesh: Sensing Multiple Touch and Finger Pressure on Arbitrary Surfaces

This paper identifies a new physical correlate of finger pressure that can be detected and measured visually in a wide variety of situations. When a human finger is pressed onto a hard object the flesh is compressed between two rigid surfaces: the surface of the target object and the fingernail. This forces blood out of the vessels in the fingertip, changing its colour slightly, but systematically. The effect is visible to the naked eye and can be measured using techniques from computer vision. As measurements are made of properties of the hand, and not the target surface, multiple-touch and pressure sensing can be added to a range of surfaces - including opaque, transparent, smooth, textured and non-planar examples - without modification of the underlying physical object. The proposed approach allows touch sensing to be fitted to surfaces unsuitable for previous technologies, and objects which cannot be altered, without forfeiting the extra range of expression of pressure sensitivity. The methods involved are simple to set up and low cost, requiring only a domestic-quality camera and a typical computer in order to augment a surface. Two systems which exploit this cue to generate a response to pressure are presented, along with a case study of an interactive art installation contructed using the resulting technology. Initial experiments are reported which suggest that visual monitoring of finger colour will support recogntion of push events.

HCI and sports

Sport is an area in which the number of available computing devices is growing rapidly. However, HCI has so far devoted rather little attention to the sports domain. This workshop aims to form a community around sports by gathering existing activity in the HCI domain, thus starting a discussion on what HCI can contribute to the sports domain, as well as what HCI can gain from studying sports.

Uncomfortable user experience

How to create and resolve discomfort for a thrilling and memorable experience.

Breathalising games: understanding the potential of breath control in game interfaces

This paper explores the potential for breath control as an interaction medium for gaming. In particular it examines the positioning of breath control within the stack of interface paradigms: As the only control, as a secondary control and as an ancillary or ambient control. It describes a technology developed using specially adapted gas masks to measure breath flow. By describing five simple games (or game modifications), each developed using breath in a somewhat different way, we show some of the possibilities of this unique interface paradigm. Crucially, the paper aims to demonstrate that breathing, though in principle a one dimensional interface medium, is actually a subtle and viable control mechanism that can be used either as a control mechanism in itself, or to enhance a more traditional game interface, ultimately leading to a satisfying and immersive game experience.

Expanding exertion gaming

While exertion games - digital games where the outcome is determined by physical exertion - are of growing interest in HCI, we believe the current health and fitness focus in the research of exertion games limits the opportunities this field has to offer. In order to broaden the agenda on exertion games, we link the existing fields of sports and interactive entertainment (arguing these fields have much to offer) by presenting four of our own designs as case studies. Using our experiences with these designs we highlight three key strategies to guide designers in the creation of richer exertion game experiences: designing a temporal trajectory through games with reference to the way exertion changes over time, designing for the inevitable and not necessarily negative effects of pain in exertion games, and designing for the highly socially situated nature of exertion gaming.

Graffito: crowd-based performative interaction at festivals

Crowd-based events are generating new forms of crowd-based performative interaction. Nightclubs and festivals are at the cutting edge of crowd-based interaction with ubiquitous computing. The social capital of crowd-based interaction is not well understood and is usually limited to one-off events. Our intention is to explore the possibility for generating a lifelong contextual footprint of crowd-based performative interaction. In this paper, we present and discuss two case studies of designing applications for crowd-based performative interaction at two large-scale festivals and reflect on their implications for design.