Rikard Lindell

Crafting interaction: The epistemology of modern programming

There is a long tradition in design of discussing materials and the craft of making artefacts. “Smart” and interactive materials affected what constitutes a material. Interaction design is a design activity that creates the appearance and behaviour of information technology, challenged by the illusiveness of interactive materials. With the increased design space of ubiquitous devices, designers can no longer rely on a design process based on known interaction idioms, especially for innovative highly interactive designs. This impedes the design process, because non-interactive materials, by which designers create sketches, storyboards, and mock-up prototypes, do not provide the essential talkbacks needed to make reliable assessments of the design characteristics. Without a well-defined design, the engineering process of artefacts has unclear ends, which are not encompassed in the rational epistemology of engineering. To value the experiential qualities of these artefacts, the prototypes need to be interactive and crafted in code. This paper investigates the materiality of information technology, specifically programming language code from which interactive artefacts are made. A study of users of programming languages investigates how they describe programming language code as a material. If you have a material, it is reasonable, because of the tradition in the material and craft fields, to say you have a craft. Thus, considering code a design material allows the metaphor of craft to be used for the activity of programming.

The Data Surface Interaction Paradigm

This paper presents, in contrasts to the desktop metaphor, a content centric data surface interaction paradigm for graphical user interfaces applied to music creativity improvisation. Issues taken into account were navigation and retrieval of information, collaboration, and creative open-ended tasks. In this system there are no windows, icons, menus, files or applications. Content is presented on an infinitely large two-dimensional surface navigated by incremental search, zoom, and pan. Commands are typed aided by contextual help, visual feedback, and text completion. Components provide services related to different content modalities. Synchronisation of data surface content sustains mutual awareness of actions and mutual modifiability. The prototype music tool was evaluated with 10 users; it supported services expected by users, their creativity in action, and awareness in collaboration. User responses to the prototype tool were: It feels free, it feels good for creativity, and it’s easy and fun to use.

Low-cost mixed reality simulator for industrial vehicle environments

High-end industrial vehicle simulators are generally expensive and aim at providing a high level of realism. The access to such simulators is often a limited resource to researchers and developers who find themselves using a PC-based simulator instead. We challenge this approach by introducing a low-cost mixed reality simulator for industrial vehicles that allows to test new vehicle control concepts and design ideas in a rapid prototyping manner. Our simulator prototype consists of a head-mounted projection display, a CAVE-like room covered with a retro-reflective cloth and a rotatable chair with controls to steer an industrial vehicle. The created digital environment represents an obstacle course for an excavator and can be controlled by a joystick, a keyboard and can be explored by natural head movements.

Perception of Delay in Computer Input Devices Establishing a Baseline for Signal Processing of Motion Sensor Systems

New computer input devices in healthcare applications using small embedded sensors need firmware filters to run smoothly and to provide a better user experience. Therefore, it has to be investigated how much delay can be tolerated for signal processing before the users perceive a delay when using a computer input device. This paper is aimed to find out a threshold of unperceived delay by performing user tests with 25 participants. A communication retarder was used to create delays from 0 to 100 ms between a receiving computer and three different USB-connected computer input devices. A wired mouse, a wifi mouse and a head-mounted mouse were used as input devices. The results of the user tests show that delays up to 50 ms could be tolerated and are not perceived as delay, or depending on the used device still perceived as acceptable.

Evaluation of a Mixed Reality Head-Mounted Projection Display to Support Motion Capture Acting

Motion capture acting is a challenging task, it requires trained and experienced actors who can highly rely on their acting and imagination skills to deliver believable performances. This is especially the case when preparation times are short and scenery needs to be imagined, as it is commonly the case for shoots in the gaming industry. To support actors in such cases, we developed a mixed reality application that allows showing digital scenery and triggering emotions while performing.

Design in Ecology of Other Artefacts

Music software has traditionally been developed in ecosystems of technology that artists combine to create their tools for compositions. The ability to connect artefacts has developed thought the evolution of music technology. Today, the mobile platform has become an increasingly important ecosystem for music applications, combining traditional technology with the platform specific infrastructure. To make an artefacts design valid in the ecosystem, designers and developers need to support this infrastructure. This paper present the design process of c3n loops, an iOS music app based on zoomable user interface in contrast with the platforms design idioms. The c3n loops design relies on its own design idioms while balancing the support for platform specific technologies such as AudioBus/Inter-app Audio, Ableton Link beat synchronisation, and MIDI.

The Design Process Continues - Attending Experiential Values up to Version 1.0.

How to attend experiential values of a design throughout the implementation is still an open issue. The interplay between experience design and software engineering is problematic because of the different epistemologies of design and engineering. Interaction design is a design practice, whereas software engineering describes itself as engineering and science. There is a long tradition in design of discussing materials and the craft of making artefacts. Thus, if we have a material, it is reasonable to say that we have a craft. If programming language code is a design material, then, making a finished artefact is the shaping of material. The development process can thus continue as a design process up to version 1.0. This paper presents a design case up to version 1.0 of a music creativity app, utilising design through programming. The app design validity was evaluated in a field study at an electronica music festival. Material consciousness of code, and an open-ended, and quality-driven design process allow attention to the experiential qualities of the design.

Acting 2.0: when entertainment technology helps actors to perform

Motion capture shoots involve a wide range of technology and entertainment production systems such as motion capture cameras, tracking software and digital environments to create entertainment applications. However, acting in this high-tech environment is still traditional and brings its own challenges to the actors. Good acting and imagination skills are highly needed for many motion capture shoots to deliver satisfying results. In our research, we are exploring how to support the actors and use a head-mounted projection display to create a mixed reality application helping actors to perform during motion capture shoots. This paper presents the latest enhancements of our head-mounted projection display application and discusses the use of this technology for motion capture acting as well as the potential use for entertainment purposes.