Lucia Terrenghi

A taxonomy for and analysis of multi-person-display ecosystems

Interactive displays are increasingly being distributed in a broad spectrum of everyday life environments: they have very diverse form factors and portability characteristics, support a variety of interaction techniques, and can be used by a variable number of people. The coupling of multiple displays creates an interactive “ecosystem of displays”. Such an ecosystem is suitable for particular social contexts, which in turn generates novel settings for communication and performance and challenges in ownership. This paper aims at providing a design space that can inform the designers of such ecosystems. To this end, we provide a taxonomy that builds on the size of the ecosystem and on the degree of individual engagement as dimensions. We recognize areas where physical constraints imply certain kinds of social engagement, versus other areas where further work on interaction techniques for coupling displays can open new design spaces.

Affordances for manipulation of physical versus digital media on interactive surfaces

This work presents the results of a comparative study in which we investigate the ways manipulation of physical versus digital media are fundamentally different from one another. Participants carried out both a puzzle task and a photo sorting task in two different modes: in a physical 3-dimensional space and on a multi-touch, interactive tabletop in which the digital items resembled their physical counterparts in terms of appearance and behavior. By observing the interaction behaviors of 12 participants, we explore the main differences and discuss what this means for designing interactive surfaces which use aspects of the physical world as a design resource.

A cube to learn: a tangible user interface for the design of a learning appliance

In this paper we introduce the design and development of the Learning Cube as a novel tangible learning appliance. Using the common shape of a cube we implemented a general learning platform that supports test based quizzes where questions and answers can be text or image based. Exploiting the physical affordances of the cube and augmenting it with embedded sensors and LCD displays placed on each face, we present different learning appliances as playful learning interfaces for children. Based on the initial observations of the experience with children, we argue that breaking conventions about how a computer has to look like, and providing children with a playful interface is a promising approach to embed and integrate technology into children’s everyday context and activities.

Kitchen stories: sharing recipes with the Living Cookbook

Research on smart houses has mostly been focused on automation and invisible integration of technology, which may lead to a perceived loss of control and a sense of being observed. In our perspective users play an active and creative role, deliberately engaging with visible technology, not for reasons of efficiency, but rather for the fostering of social relations. In particular, we are looking at the kitchen environment, and we present the Living Cookbook. It enables people to share their cooking experiences, to educate others in the cooking practice, and to suggest a sense of presence and sociability. The cooking activity is reinterpreted as an experience, and the use of technology supports intimacy, communication, education, fun and creativity while cooking.

Physical handles at the interactive surface: exploring tangibility and its benefits

In this paper we investigate tangible interaction on interactive tabletops. These afford the support and integration of physical artefacts for the manipulation of digital media. To inform the design of interfaces for interactive surfaces we think it is necessary to deeply understand the benefits of employing such physical handles, i.e., the benefits of employing a third spatial dimension at the point of interaction. To this end we conducted an experimental study by designing and comparing two versions of an interactive tool on a tabletop display, one with a physical 3D handle, and one purely graphical (but direct touch enabled). Whilst hypothesizing that the 3D version would provide a number of benefits, our observations revealed that users developed diverse interaction approaches and attitudes about hybrid and direct touch interaction.

The EnLighTable: Design of Affordances to Support Collaborative Creativity

In this paper we discuss some interface design concepts for supporting and enhancing collaborative creativity in multi-user interactive environments. We focus on the design of affordances for direct manipulation and collaboration on table-top displays. As an application of our concepts, we introduce the EnLighTable, an appliance for creative teamwork in the selection of pictures and layout design based on a table-top touch-sensitive display. We present our rationale for the design of affordances which metaphorically relate to artifacts – and map to gestures – of the physical world. Finally we discuss the results of our first design iteration and introduce a possible future extension of the table-top appliance to other devices of an instrumented environment.

Cloudroom: a conceptual model for managing data in space and time

Cheap broadband access and hosting infrastructure on the web have enabled many services that traditionally would have been deployed as local desktop applications to be hosted and accessed via the Internet - in the Cloud - from any network-connected device. This trend is referred to as Cloud Computing. The movement towards a network-based environment implies novel conceptual models for storing, searching and sharing digital information on the web and across devices. In this paper we describe our concept design for management and visualization of resources in the Cloud Computing paradigm. Based on our insights from qualitative user studies, we design an environment which reflects the way people use spatial and temporal memory to organize and navigate through artifacts. We then discuss how our concept builds upon existing work and its implications for future work.

Information visualization and interaction techniques for collaboration across multiple displays

This two day workshop looks at the challenges and issues associated with supporting collaborative analytical reasoning tasks over a range of displays and interaction environments. The focus is not only on visualization and interaction, but also on perception, cognition, and sense-making in collaborative settings.

The physical user interface profile (PUIP): modelling mobile interactions with the real world

So far the field of model based user interface development has focused mostly on the usage of one device, such as a Personal Computer, by one person. New interaction techniques emerge in which the user interacts with the surrounding world while using the mobile phone as a mediator for physical interactions and as communication tool to interact with services and other users. Here several devices or physical elements are used for input and output, and more than one user might be involved. These new settings require description models to support the analysis, design and implementation of systems that take such interaction techniques into account. We present the new UML 2.0 Physical User Interface Profile (PUIP) that is based on the UML 2.0 Profile for Context-Sensitive User Interface (CUP, [24]) to support the modelling of this kind of interactions. We show the feasibility of our approach through the modelling of an existing physical mobile interaction and discuss its suitability.

Elastic mobility: stretching interaction

Based on a consideration of usage and technological computing trends, we reflect on the implications of cloud computing on mobile interaction with applications, data and devices. We argue that by extending the interaction capabilities of the mobile device by connecting it to external peripherals, new mobile contexts of personal (and social) computing can emerge, thus creating novel contexts of mobile interaction. In such a scenario, mobile devices can act as context-adaptive information filters. We then present Focus, our work in progress on a context-adaptive UI, which we can demonstrate at the MobileHCI demo session as a clickable dummy on a mobile device.