Table Manners

Maher 8-6-13

Tangible computing is becoming more ubiquitous among people, mainly in the form of touch screen devices.  Mary Lou Maher and her team are looking at ways in which this type of technology, along with even more tangible technologies, affects the way we think about and interact with computers.

            When thinking about designing new interfaces and ways to touch technology, one has to take into consideration the gestural aspect of the interaction.  Tangible interaction breaks us free from the standard keyboard and mouse position and opens up possibilities for more natural gesturing to interact with machines. Tablets and smartphones utilize this in a very basic way, incorporating swiping and tapping into the basic control of the interface.  These commands are fairly simple and intuitive, but still seem to be based on the same principles of the mouse.  It seems to me that the device itself is the limiting factor, not the ingenuity of the designer. Programs become more engaging when they take advantage of more of the devices capabilities, such as a built in camera, accelerometer, or GPS.

More and more options for designers do not necessarily mean that they all need to be used.  Bulky and clumsy programs with too many bells and whistles can slow down operating speed and make the user experience less desirable and more cumbersome. Just as I wrote before, research and testing should be used to determine the best way that a targeted audience will use the device and the program written onto it.  When visiting the lab, I tried out the touch table and some of the programs that came with it.  One of these was a puzzle program that was fairly intuitive, using touch one can drag a piece to a desired location then rotate it with two touches.  Another program that was a little bit bulkier was a solar system exploration program, NUIverse.  This held some problems since it wasn’t easy to determine how exactly to get the program to work.  It had all sorts of menus and options, but even after playing with it, my colleagues and I couldn’t quite get the hang of it.  Streamlining designs and making gestures that control actions in the program simple and easy to understand can make a world of difference to the user.

In contrast, designers may not think of everything when dealing with a new program and the device that it is loaded on.  Maher and her team did just this when testing their educational designs with children.  One of the devices, the Siftable Cubes, has a variety of functions, all of which were used to interact with the images or letters presented to the users.  One thing that was overlooked in this case, was how the cubes would react to user gestures not anticipated by the designers, such as stacking or throwing.  Testing products and ideas can reveal things that were not though about before, and can subsequently add to the user experience.