Discovering Physical Visceral Qualities for Natural Interaction

Masitah Ghazali

PhD Thesis
Computing Department, Lancaster University, UK.
February 2007

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home page: http://comp.utm.my/masitah/

Abstract

As the technologies of computing have advanced to become ubiquitous and pervasive in our everyday life, our way of interacting with computers is also changing. Most existing research, particularly on Tangible User Interfaces (TUI), has focused on enhancing and augmenting physical artefacts to be digitally-linked to underlying computational functionalities. This research focuses on physical devices and reports an investigation into what makes interaction natural and fluid.

We believe the knowledge of today can benefit the design of tomorrow. A wide range of home appliances and devices are examined. Attention during the analysis is given to the mappings between the physical and digital states and the design features that make them appealing and natural to use. A set of physical design features and a collection of implicit design characteristics are introduced. These are further analysed and elaborated from a cognitive point of view, which takes into account mental requirements and cultural influences. Tangible devices that embody the design principles are then examined and these principles are related to existing TUI framework.

The design principles were incorporated in the study of the Cubicle – an existing tangible input device. Despite breakdowns in the users’ ability to create explicit mappings, users still could complete tasks, and found the whole experience enjoyable. Inverse action (one of the design principles) enabled users to construct momentary mappings which helped them to overcome breakdowns. We call the momentary knowledge that embeds within the flow of interaction; visceral interaction. We further explored the notion of inverse action in a second user study: ‘Cruel Design’, where the mappings between two joysticks and their functionalities were swapped around.

In this thesis, we learned there are more to natural interaction than just good mappings. It was particularly surprising to discover where mappings are not explicit and deliberate, physical visceral qualities in artefacts, together with human innate abilities, helped users in interaction.