Steve Gill

Physicality in Design: an exploration

ABSTRACT Both the nature of many products and their process of creation are becoming increasingly digitally mediated. However, our bodies and minds are naturally conceived to interact with the physical, so crucial design information can be elicited by constructing meaningful prototypes. This paper examines how physical materials impact early design through a study that explores how groups with very different materials tackle a common design challenge. The inherent physical properties of the materials and the ways in which designers interpret and manipulate them give rise to subtle patterns of behaviour. These include the ways in which groups move between abstract and concrete discussions, the way groups comply with or resist the materials they are given, and the complex interactions between the physicality of materials and the group dynamics. This understanding is contributing to our research in explicating the fundamental role of physicality in the design of hybrid physical and digital artefacts.

Developing information appliance design tools for designers

AbstractAs more products become computer-embedded, designers need to consider both the hardware and interface. Traditional design processes and design tools focus on hardware aspects, and so new methods and techniques must be investigated and developed. The aim of this study is to investigate new design models for designing computer-embedded products. In particular, it focuses on ways by which designers can be assisted in problem identification, exploration and evaluation of design solutions by using a rapid interface prototyping technique. The technique is based on a widely used general presentation software application. It can be used to develop fully functional prototypes of computer embedded products without electronic engineering skills.

Physigrams: modelling devices for natural interaction

This paper explores the formal specification of the physical behaviour of devices ‘unplugged’ from their digital effects. By doing this we seek to better understand the nature of physical interaction and the way this can be exploited to improve the design of hybrid devices with both physical and digital features. We use modified state transition networks of the physical behaviour, which we call physiograms, and link these to parallel diagrams of the digital state. These are used to describe a number of features of physical interaction exposed by previous work and relevant properties expressed using a formal semantics of the diagrams. As well as being an analytic tool, the physigrams have been used in a case study where product designers used and adapted them as part of the design process.

Six challenges facing user-oriented industrial design

ABSTRACT Much has been written about the need to address the requirements of the user when designing information appliances (mobile phones, MP3 players, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and so on), but less is written about the challenges designers face in bringing this about. Using case studies, this paper will examine six of the problems facing design teams in consultancies, Small- to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and multinationals tasked with the design of complex computer embedded products. A case study of the successful implementation of a technology-based product is presented. The factors that make it an example of good practice and the ways in which the designers have overcome the six challenges are examined. In conclusion, the challenges for the successful design and development of information appliances are summarized and ways in which they might be addressed discussed.

The need for a comprehensive and consistent approach in sustainability assessment of buildings - the EC Product Environmental Footprint

To date a proliferation of sustainability claims in architecture is noticed. The major focus is on energy and related CO2 and on the use stage of buildings. Although energy during the building use stage is highly relevant, a more comprehensive life cycle approach is needed to support decision making in order not to overlook relevant environmental burdens such as respiratory effects and land use. This proliferation of sustainability claims is not only noticed in the building sector. Also in other sectors confusion in the market on how to measure the environmental performance has appeared due to this proliferation of claims. This can lead to unfair commercial practices and greenwashing. As a base for addressing the current confusion in the market, the Environmental Footprint was developed and has recently been adopted by the European Commission. This method provides specific guidance for comprehensive, robust and consistent environmental assessment of products and organisations. It is based on four main principles: (1) multi-criteria, (2) life cycle thinking, (3) consistency and (4) ensuring maximally physically representative modeling. This paper presents the Product Environmental Footprint in the specific context of buildings.

Active and passive physicality: making the most of low fidelity physical interactive prototypes

This paper presents three case-studies which comprise a systematic investigation into the use of low fidelity physical interactive prototyping techniques to form a design principle based on the constructs of active and passive physicality. It proposes that, with a better understanding of active and passive physicality, designers can make more effective prototypes for early stage user trials. Results of our studies indicate that the most effective prototypes balance both active and passive physicality equally. In addition, the notion of physicality can demonstrate why, in our studies; paper prototyping, screen-based prototypes and even Arduino prototypes produced unsatisfactory user data.

The effect of physicality on low fidelity interactive prototyping for design practice

In this paper we propose the concept of ’active’ and ’passive’ physicality as mental models to help in understanding the role of low fidelity prototypes in the design process for computer embedded products. We define ‘active physicality’ as how the prototype and its software react to users and ‘passive physicality’ as how the prototype looks and feels offline. User trials of four different types of ‘low fidelity’ prototypes were undertaken using an existing product as the datum. Each prototype was analysed in terms of active and passive physicality and user responses were collated and compared qualitatively and quantitatively. The results suggest that prototypes that balance both active and passive physicality produce data closer to the final device than those that are strong in one at the expense of the other.

Getting into Context Early: A comparative study of laboratory and in-context user testing of low fidelity information appliance prototypes

ABSTRACT For designers developing information appliances, bringing together the physical and digital elements of a product early in the design process presents a prototyping challenge. Whilst prototyping methods have been developed to address this need, these methods have so far only been evaluated using laboratory-based testing approaches. This paper argues that testing in-context should also be supported by prototyping methods, and presents the findings of a comparative study between a laboratory and in-context user test of early information appliance prototypes. A key question was whether the type of ‘rough and ready’ prototypes frequently found in user laboratory setting might, with some careful development, be suitable for in-context testing. The results of the study show that in-context and laboratory testing of early, ‘rough and ready’ prototypes uncovered different usability problems. In this study, in-context testing of prototypes uncovered problems with physical inputs and product format not seen in the laboratory environment. In contrast, the increased opportunities for spontaneous user reflection during laboratory testing provided insights into user expectations of functionality not seen during in-context testing.

Editorial: Physicality and interaction

We live in an increasingly digital world yet our bodies and minds are naturally designed to interact with the physical. The products of the 21st century are and will be a synthesis of digital and physical elements embedded in new physical and social environments. As we design more hybrid physical/digital products, the distinctions for the user become blurred. It is therefore increasingly important that we understand what we gain, lose or confuse by the added digitality. Digitally augmented physical artefacts can be tailored and adapted to operate within a wide range of ecological settings. However, they also become more complex and require a fairly intensive design process to make them not simply practical and functional but also engaging. As a result, the need becomes even more pressing to comprehend the underlying computational intricacies, the physical form, properties and behaviour, the physical and social contexts, and the issues of aesthetics and creativity. This special issue of Interacting with Computers arose out of series of workshops on the issue of Physicality (see http:// www.physicality.org/). These attracted a wide range of participants: artists and architects, designers and dancers, programmers and philosophers; all in different ways seeking to understand and exploit the physical nature of the world, things within the world and the human body itself. They also reflected intersections with other topical areas including ubiquitous computing and tangible interaction. The importance of issues surrounding physicality and materiality is clear. At the same time that the call for this special issue was issued there were two other journal special issue calls in closely related areas. However, the level of interest is such that despite this ‘competition’, the call for this issue was in fact heavily oversubscribed. The editors’ own interest in the issue of physicality cuts across a number of areas including: understanding the way physical artefacts act as prompts or triggers for action; using the placement of objects in the environment as a resource for the analysis of human activity; studying digital and electrical appliances in order to understand the role of physical form and behaviour in enhancing usability and user experience; and exploring the role of physical tools and models during the design process and how this affects the designers themselves and users testing early prototypes. The papers in this special issue also demonstrate the wide range of domains where issues of physicality are important. Antle, Corness and Droumeva in ‘‘What the Body Knows: Exploring the Benefits of Embodied Metaphor in Hybrid Physical Digital Environments” look at the use of physical metaphors to drive the design of tools for creating music. Khoo, Merritt and Cheok in ‘‘Designing Physical and Social Intergenerational Family Entertainment” focus on physical

Investigating How Smartphone Movement is Affected by Body Posture

We present an investigation into how hand usage is affected by different body postures (Sitting at a table, Lying down and Standing) when interacting with smartphones. We theorize a list of factors (smartphone support, body support and muscle usage) and explore their influence the tilt and rotation of the smartphone. From this we draw a list of hypotheses that we investigate in a quantitative study. We varied the body postures and grips (Symmetric bimanual, Asymmetric bimanual finger, Asymmetric bimanual thumb and Single-handed) studying the effects through a dual pointing task. Our results showed that the body posture Lying down had the most movement, followed by Sitting at a table and finally Standing. We additionally generate reports of motions performed using different grips. Our work extends previous research conducted with multiple grips in a sitting position by including other body postures, it is anticipated that UI designers will use our results to inform the development of mobile user interfaces.