Shaleph O'Neill

Interactive Media: The Semiotics of Embodied Interaction

The author discusses the existing theoretical approaches of semiotically informed research in HCI, what is useful and the limitations. He proposes a radical rethink to this approach through a re-evaluation of important semiotic concepts and applied semiotic methods. Using a semiotic model of interaction he explores this concept through several studies that help to develop his argument. He concludes that this semiotics of interaction is more appropriate than other versions because it focuses on the characteristics of interactive media as they are experienced and the way in which users make sense of them rather than thinking about interface design or usability issues.

Editorial: The emerging roles of performance within HCI and interaction design

As Brenda Laurel noted as far back as 1992, the operation of computers has always been a performative activity (Laurel, 1992). A system’s state changes as a computer runs through a program acting out the tasks specified in the script of a program. With interactive systems, human actors take their place on stage alongside computers, performing activities with and through such systems. The recent emergence of ubiquitous and tangible computing moves the stage of the interaction from the virtuality of the screen to the physical environment. This provides opportunities to address performative interactions that include bodily movements to create novel multimodal approaches. For interaction designers, this requires thinking about interaction in a different way, for example considering the role of the body, beyond ergonomics, for its increased relevance as a presentational, representational and experiential medium. Recently there has been a growing interest in developing interaction design methods that more explicitly recognise and exploit the performative elements and potentials of design activity itself. Across all design disciplines, the importance of effective communication has led to an awareness of the need to consider and improve our ability to represent ideas in ways that open up, rather than shut down, dialogue. Performance, theatre and dramaturgy have begun to figure in the design of interactive systems. There have been long standing debates about the nature, utility, form, timing and quality of communication within the design process. For example, scenarios have found widespread acceptance as a tool for communicating rich user experiences within requirements and design specifications. Whilst they are typically not performed as such, their roots in the forms of traditional narrative point to a performative potential that could be more fully explored. Within object-oriented software design, the CRC Cards technique combines role-playing with scenario walkthroughs and use-cases to provide design teams with a software object’s perspective on the

The place probe: exploring a sense of place in real and virtual environments

This paper describes the design, application, and refinement of a qualitative tool designed to study sense of place. The Place Probe incorporates a range of stimuli and techniques aimed at articulating a persons sense of place. It has been developed, used, and undergone three revisions. The paper describes the background to the choice of measures that were included in the Place Probe and describes its application in both a physical place and a virtual representation of that place. This enables a comparison of the experiences. An analysis of the results reveals a similarity of reported experience, however the extremes experienced in the physical place were less pronounced in the virtual representation. The Place Probe has been refined in light of the results of the empirical work and now incorporates both qualitative and quantitative data on the experience of place.

RE: designing a digital sketchbook

Why are digital tools not replacing traditional sketchbooks? Our research explores the fundamentals of sketchbook use by thinking about them as Creativity Support Tools that could be digitally replicated.

Mixing the library - information interaction and the disc jockey

A model of information interaction, based on the activities of disc jockeys (DJs) provides a valuable conceptual framework for working in large digital collections. Their processes and workflow demonstrate creative information behaviours that are transferable to other data-representations; as such the model represents a new take on read/write systems of interaction for creative development in archives of all kinds, and provides a platform for learning and authoring with digital collections.