Reflections on enhancing interaction in surface computing using real-world objects

Abstract

The popularity of interactive surfaces has increased significantly in the past years. The development of several interactive surfaces has stimulated research on interaction techniques, group collaboration, information visualization techniques, technology alternatives, ... Furthermore, a number of applications were realized, mostly focusing on sorting (e.g. pictures), planning (e.g. agenda's, projects, GIS), sketching, brainstorming or games. Here, touch input and gestures form the principal method of interaction, whereas additional input devices are rather seldom used. On the other hand, a number of researchers have been working on tangible user interfaces (TUI) in the past decade. Their research has led to quite some innovative interfaces in a wide range of application areas. Working with tangible I/O objects is experienced as quite intuitive, notwithstanding the fact that many objects are newly created artifacts. These objects have form factors of their real-world counterpart (if any) and thus help facilitating embodied interaction. A research challenge, situated at the crossroads of tangible user interfaces and interactive surfaces, is the interaction with real-world objects on interactive surfaces. Since affordances and behavior of real-world objects are familiar to the target audience of an application (and hence can substantially improve user experience), it should be beneficial to use real world objects in applications of surface computing.