Performative tangible systems allow people to gather in public spaces and express themselves through art and performance. Designing successful systems is a challenge because they need to entice and engage community members to playfully explore the relationship between their bodies, tangible artifacts, and digital output in a public area. Based on existing design requirements [Sheridan & Bryan-Kinns, 2008] for performative tangible interaction, we created a system, WiiPaint, which places a strong emphasis on the pleasure of motion. WiiPaint maps movement qualities to digital feedback in a way that facilitates full-body interaction, exploration, and creativity. In this paper, we present design considerations for performative tangible interfaces in public spaces based on WiiPaint’s iterative and explorative design process. Together, the design requirements and our design considerations provide a more holistic view of salient design issues for performative tangible interfaces that can help designers create the intended experience.
Molecular and computational biologists develop new insights by gathering heterogeneous data from genomic databases and leveraging bioinformatics tools. Through a qualitative study with 17 participants, we found that molecular and computational biologists experience difficulties interpreting, comparing, annotating, sharing, and relating this vast amount of biological information. We further observed that such interactions are critical for forming new scientific hypotheses. These observations motivated the creation of G-nome Surfer, a table-top interface for collaborative exploration of genomic data that implements multi-touch and tangible interaction techniques. G-nome Surfer was developed in close collaboration with domain scientists and is aimed at lowering the threshold for using bioinformatics tools. A first-use study with 16 participants found that G-nome Surfer enables users to gain biological insights that are based on multiple forms of evidence with minimal overhead. [Download paper]
Wiipaint is a digital art installation that aims to encourage informal social interaction in public spaces. Wiipaint uses expressive multimedia to entice community members to playfully explore the relationship between their bodies, tangible artifacts, and digital output. The design of Wiipaint places a strong emphasis on the pleasure of motion, mapping movement qualities to digital feedback in a way that facilitates playful interaction, exploration, collaboration, and creativity. [Website]
Research
2010
Fan, C., Shaer, O., Metaxas, P., Olsen, D., Forlizzi, J. Design considerations for performative tangible interaction in public spaces. Submitted to DIS’10. »
Performative tangible systems allow people to gather in public spaces and express themselves through art and performance. Designing successful systems is a challenge because they need to entice and engage community members to playfully explore the relationship between their bodies, tangible artifacts, and digital output in a public area. Based on existing design requirements [Sheridan & Bryan-Kinns, 2008] for performative tangible interaction, we created a system, WiiPaint, which places a strong emphasis on the pleasure of motion. WiiPaint maps movement qualities to digital feedback in a way that facilitates full-body interaction, exploration, and creativity. In this paper, we present design considerations for performative tangible interfaces in public spaces based on WiiPaint’s iterative and explorative design process. Together, the design requirements and our design considerations provide a more holistic view of salient design issues for performative tangible interfaces that can help designers create the intended experience.
2009
Shaer, O., Kol, G., Strait, M., Fan, C., Grevet, C., and Elfenbein, S. G-nome Surfer: A table-top interface for collaborative exploration of genomic data. CHI’10. »
Molecular and computational biologists develop new insights by gathering heterogeneous data from genomic databases and leveraging bioinformatics tools. Through a qualitative study with 17 participants, we found that molecular and computational biologists experience difficulties interpreting, comparing, annotating, sharing, and relating this vast amount of biological information. We further observed that such interactions are critical for forming new scientific hypotheses. These observations motivated the creation of G-nome Surfer, a table-top interface for collaborative exploration of genomic data that implements multi-touch and tangible interaction techniques. G-nome Surfer was developed in close collaboration with domain scientists and is aimed at lowering the threshold for using bioinformatics tools. A first-use study with 16 participants found that G-nome Surfer enables users to gain biological insights that are based on multiple forms of evidence with minimal overhead. [Download paper]
Other research
WiiPaint: Full-body interaction in a collaborative art application | Wellesley College thesis in Media Arts & Sciences | Advisors: Panagiotis Metaxas, Orit Shaer, David Olsen | submitted to TEI’10 »
Wiipaint is a digital art installation that aims to encourage informal social interaction in public spaces. Wiipaint uses expressive multimedia to entice community members to playfully explore the relationship between their bodies, tangible artifacts, and digital output. The design of Wiipaint places a strong emphasis on the pleasure of motion, mapping movement qualities to digital feedback in a way that facilitates playful interaction, exploration, collaboration, and creativity. [Website]