Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-45ctf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-03-28T10:44:59.378Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Framing tangible interaction frameworks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2009

Ali Mazalek  and
Elise van den Hoven
Ali Mazalek
Affiliation:
Synaesthetic Media Lab, Digital Media Program, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Elise van den Hoven
Affiliation:
User-Centered Engineering Group, Industrial Design Department, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Tangible interaction is a growing area of human–computer interaction research that has become popular in recent years. Yet designers and researchers are still trying to comprehend and clarify its nature, characteristics, and implications. One approach has been to create frameworks that help us look back at and categorize past tangible interaction systems, and look forward at the possibilities and opportunities for developing new systems. To date, a number of different frameworks have been proposed that each provide different perspectives on the tangible interaction design space, and which can guide designers of new systems in different ways. In this paper, we map the space of tangible interaction frameworks. We order existing frameworks by their general type, and by the facets of tangible interaction design they address. One of our main conclusions is that most frameworks focus predominantly on the conceptual design of tangible systems, whereas fewer frameworks abstract the knowledge gained from previous systems, and hardly any framework provides concrete steps or tools for building new tangible systems. In addition, the facets most represented in existing frameworks are those that address the interactions with or the physicality of the designed systems. Other facets, such as domain-specific technology and experience, are rare. This focus on design, interaction, and physicality is interesting, as the origins of the field are rooted in engineering methods and have only recently started to incorporate more design-inspired approaches. As such, we expected more frameworks to focus on technologies and to provide concrete building suggestions for new tangible interaction systems.

Keywords

DesignFrameworksTangible Interaction

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
AI EDAM , Volume 23 , Issue 3: Tangible Interaction for Design , August 2009 , pp. 225 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Antle, A.N. (2007). The CTI framework: informing the design of tangible systems for children. In Proc. 1st Int. Conf. Tangible and Embedded interaction, TEI ’07, pp. 195–202. New York: ACM Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ballagas, R., Ringel, M., Stone, M., & Borchers, J. (2003). iStuff: a physical user interface toolkit for ubiquitous computing environments. Proc. SIGCHI Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI ’03, pp. 537–544. New York: ACM Press.Google Scholar
Bellotti, V., Back, M., Edwards, W.K., Grinter, R.E., Henderson, A., & Lopes, C. (2002). Making sense of sensing systems: five questions for designers and researchers. Proc. SIGCHI Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems: Changing Our World, Changing Ourselves, CHI ’02, pp. 415–422. New York: ACM Press.Google Scholar
Benford, S., Schnadelbach, H., Koleva, B., Anastasi, R., Greenhalgh, C., Rodden, T., Green, J., Ghali, A., Pridmore, T., Gaver, B., Boucher, A., Walker, B., Pennington, S., Schmidt, A., Gellersen, H., & Steed, A. (2005). Expected, sensed, and desired: a framework for designing sensing-based interaction. ACM Transactions on Computer–Human Interactions 12 (1), 3–30.Google Scholar
Djajadiningrat, T., Wensveen, S., Frens, J., & Overbeeke, K. (2004). Tangible products: redressing the balance between appearance and action. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 8 (5), 294–309.Google Scholar
Fishkin, K.P. (2004). A taxonomy for and analysis of tangible interfaces. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 8 (5), 347–358.Google Scholar
Greenberg, S., & Fitchett, C. (2001). Phidgets: easy development of physical interfaces through physical widgets. Proc. 14th Annual ACM Symp. User interface Software and Technology, UIST ’01, pp. 209–218. New York: ACM Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartmann, B., Klemmer, S.R., Bernstein, M., Abdulla, L., Burr, B., Robinson-Mosher, A., & Gee, J. (2006). Reflective physical prototyping through integrated design, test, and analysis. Proc. 19th Annual ACM Symp. User interface Software and Technology, UIST ’06, pp. 299–308. New York: ACM Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hinckley, K., Pausch, R., Goble, J.C., & Kassell, N.F. (1994). A survey of design issues in spatial input. Proc. 7th Annual ACM Symp. User interface Software and Technology, UIST ’94, pp. 213–222. New York: ACM Press.Google Scholar
Holmquist, L.E., Redström, J., & Ljungstrand, P. (1999). Token-based access to digital information. Proc. First Int. Symp. Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing, HUC ’99, pp. 234–245. Karlsruhe, Germany: Springer–Verlag.Google Scholar
Hornecker, E., & Buur, J. (2006). Getting a grip on tangible interaction: a framework on physical space and social interaction. Proc. SIGCHI Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI ’06 (Grinter, R., Rodden, T., Aoki, P., Cutrell, E., Jeffries, R., & Olson, G., Eds.), pp. 437–446. New York: ACM Press.Google Scholar
Hoven, E.v.d., & Eggen, B. (2004). Tangible computing in everyday life: extending the current frameworks for tangible user interfaces with personal objects. Proc. EUSAI 2004, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Markopoulos, P., et al. , Eds.), Vol. 3295, pp. 230–242. Berlin: Springer–Verlag.Google Scholar
Kimura, H., Okuda, Y., & Nakajima, T. (2007). CookieFlavors: rapid composition framework for tangible media. Proc. 2007 Int. Conf. Next Generation Mobile Applications, Services and Technologies (NGMAST ’07), pp. 100–109.Google Scholar
Klemmer, S.R., Li, J., Lin, J., & Landay, J.A. (2004). Papier-Mache: toolkit support for tangible input. Proc. SIGCHI Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI ’04, pp. 399–406. New York: ACM Press.Google Scholar
Koleva, B., Benford, S., Ng, K.H., & Rodden, T. (2003). A Framework for Tangible User Interfaces, Physical Interaction (PI03), Workshop on Real World User Interfaces, Mobile HCI Conf., Udine, Italy.Google Scholar
Kuutti, K. (1995). Activity theory as a potential framework for human–computer interaction research. In Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human–Computer Interaction (Nardi, B.A., Ed.), pp. 17–44. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Lee, J.C., Avrahami, D., Hudson, S.E., Forlizzi, J., Dietz, P.H., & Leigh, D. (2004). The calder toolkit: wired and wireless components for rapidly prototyping interactive devices. Proc. 5th Conf. Designing Interactive Systems: Processes, Practices, Methods, and Techniques, DIS ’04, pp. 167–175. New York: ACM Press.Google Scholar
Rogers, Y., & Muller, H. (2006). A framework for designing sensor-based interactions to promote exploration and reflection in play. International Journal of Human–Computer Studies 64 (1), 1–14.Google Scholar
Shaer, O., Leland, N., Calvillo-Gamez, E.H., & Jacob, R.J. (2004). The TAC paradigm: specifying tangible user interfaces. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 8 (5), 359–369.Google Scholar
Sharlin, E., Watson, B., Kitamura, Y., Kishino, F., & Itoh, Y. (2004). On tangible user interfaces, humans and spatiality. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 8 (5), pp. 338–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ullmer, B., & Ishii, H. (2000). Emerging frameworks for tangible user interfaces. IBM Systems Journal 39 (3–4), pp. 915–931.Google Scholar
Ullmer, B., & Ishii, H. (2001). Emerging frameworks for tangible user interfaces. In Human–Computer Interaction in the New Millenium (Carroll, J.D., Ed.), pp. 579–601. Reading, MA: Addison–Wesley.Google Scholar
Wensveen, S.A., Djajadiningrat, J.P., & Overbeeke, C.J. (2004). Interaction frogger: a design framework to couple action and function through feedback and feedforward. Proc. 5th Conf. Designing Interactive Systems: Processes, Practices, Methods, and Techniques, DIS ’04, pp. 177–184. New York: ACM Press.Google Scholar
Zuckerman, O., Arida, S., & Resnick, M. (2005). Extending tangible interfaces for education: digital Montessori-inspired manipulatives. Proc. SIGCHI Conf. Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI ’05, pp. 859–868. New York: ACM Press.Google Scholar