ConferenceProceedings April1415,2011

EditedbyChristianClausenandYutakaYoshinaka

 EngagingInteractioninDesign Proceedingsofthe7thStudentInteractionDesignResearchConference(SIDeR11) Kgs.Lyngby,Denmark,April1415,2011 ChristianClausenandYutakaYoshinaka,editors. 2011DTUManagementEngineering,TechnicalUniversityofDenmark PrintedinDenmark2011 ISBN9788792706119 CoverDesign:TobiasMllerRuby

ENGAGING INTERACTION IN DESIGN

Occasioning, exploring and facilitating design - through actors and objects

Proceedingsofthe7thStudentInteractionDesignResearchConference(SIDeR11) Kgs.Lyngby,Denmark,April1415,2011 EditedbyChristianClausenandYutakaYoshinaka Sponsoredby:

CONFEDERATION OF DANISH INDUSTRY

Foreword
The annual Student Interaction Design Research Conference (SIDeR) was inaugurated in 2005 in Snderborg. It has since continued to occasion the bringingtogetherofinternationalstudentsfromarangeofeducationalmilieus in interaction design, fostering dialogue and exchange on academic work and research perspectives in design thinking and practice. This years conference themeEngagingInteractioninDesign,aimstofollowinthispursuitandprovide a forum, for participants to build networks and cultivate mutual relevance, in relationtotheirrespectiveprojects,experiencesandinstitutionalbackgrounds. Designprocessescompriseofarangeofactivitiesinwhichinteractionamonga hostofactorstakesplace,andwheredifferentformsofknowledge,arangeof experiences,objectsandmethodsplayarole.Designersareincreasinglyfacing thetaskofengagingusersanduserinsightthroughparticipation,thinkingwith things in design, and facilitating organizational interaction through design methods. Engaging in interaction in design may open up to new perspectives, bridging understandings, discerning emerging interrelations that may be incorporatedintothetasksofdesign.Objectsandmethodsthatareestablished andfurtherdevelopedintherepertoiresofdesign,suchasdesigngamesandIT mediated approaches, conversely serve to frame, manage or support design processes,perhapsalsoinunexpectedways. Forthesereasons,tonamejustafew,engaginginteractionindesignisafruitful tropeandvenueforthesharingandchallengingofperspectivesondesign,and forcriticallyreflectingondesignpractice.Weareconfidentthatpractitionersof design as well as researchers inthemaking may draw impetus from the exchangeandcultivationofviews. ChristianClausenandYutakaYoshinaka Kgs.Lyngby,April2011

Scientific Committee

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AndersKristianMunck TechnicalUniversityofDenmark

JamieWallace UniversityofAarhus

AndresFelipeValdemarramaPineda TechnicalUniversityofDenmark

JaredDonovan UniversityofSouthernDenmark

Basarnal TheInteractiveInstitute,Sweden

JrnMesseter MalmUniversity

BenMatthews UniversityofSouthernDenmark

KrestineMougaard TechnicalUniversityofDenmark

BrendonClark TheInteractiveInstitute,Sweden

KyleKilbourn UniversityofSouthernDenmark

DanielFllman UmeUniversity

MetterAggerEriksen MalmUniversity

ElisabethJacobsenHeimdal TechnicalUniversityofDenmark

NiklasAndersson UmeUniversity

EllenChristiansen AalborgUniversity

OleBroberg TechnicalUniversityofDenmark

ErikHagelskjrLauridsen TechnicalUniversityofDenmark

OleIversen UniversityofAarhus

EvaBrandt DanishDesignSchool

OlofTorgersson ChalmersUniversityofTechnology

EvaEriksson ChalmersUniversityofTechnology

SalilSayed AaltoUniversity

HanneLindegaard TechnicalUniversityofDenmark

SaluYlirisku AaltoUniversity

HansTap BlekingeInstituteofTechnology

SusanneJacobson AaltoUniversity

HenryLarsen UniversityofSouthernDenmark

SofianeAchiche TechnicalUniversityofDenmark

JacobBuur UniversityofSouthernDenmark

TjhienLiao AaltoUniversity

JakobBak DanishArchitectureCenter

TorbenAnkerLenau TechnicalUniversityofDenmark

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WendyGunn UniversityofSouthernDenmark

Organizing Committee
Anush Bagratunjan Christian Clausen Greta DAngelo Konstantinos Stavrakos Tobias Mller Ruby Tomas Benzon Yutaka Yoshinaka

Special Thanks to: Susanne Plougheld Winther Krestine Mougaard Jonas Brandt Jakobsen Jakob Bak Benjamin Johansen Tanya Graasbll

Table of Contents
KEYNOTE TuuliMattelmki.EducatingSensitivityHumanSizedDesignResearch. WORKSHOPS PAPERS ScottMeadows.ThinkingSmalltoThinkBig:DesigningAbstractionstoExplore NewFormsofInteraction.

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11 15 21

NicolaiBrodersenHansen,TureGjrup.ExploringEngagementinIdeation.

AmidMoradganjegh,GeorgeParavantes.EcoCartforSustainableConsumption.

TimoHalko,KateIveyWilliams,NatalieWeinmann,TuomasSaarela. RecruitingVulnerableandSensitiveUsersinParticipatoryDesignProcess.

25

LynnBui,LinusPersson.HowCapturingDataGuidedtheDirectionofOurResearch: OurAttempttoReduceStudentConsumption.

29 33 37

HenrikKorsgaard.DocumentingaDesignProcess:ASharedVirtualWorld.

SergejsGroskovs.DesignTalksBusiness:TheVentureTowerGame.

Anuradha.V.Reddy,IshwariG.Vakhariya.Buzz:AStudyonEnhancingNewspaper ExperiencesthroughExpressions.

43 49 53 59

SharonWilliams.InterpretingtheInterpretation.

DianaSchneider.ImpactofContextDesignonInterfaceUseinPublicSettings.

MiguelPeres,VivianLo.CreativeEngagementasaDataGatheringMethod.

StineEllermann,LouiseBrockdorffJensen.DesignofCommunicationFacilitiesto YouthwithImpairedVision.

63 67

JessMyra.AssistiveMobileDevicesfortheProfessionalUserinHeavyIndustry.

 DavidMarshall,RuxandraTeodoru.DimensionsofInteractiveExhibiting:ALookat ThreeInteractionDesignStudentExhibitions.

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JackOrdRasmussen,MarcusDithmer.ExploringtheUseofSimpleTangibleInteraction TechniquesinMuseumExhibitions.

75 79 83 87

AlexisMorin.ProgrammingToolsforInteractionDesignSoftSketching.

BarsSerim.PlayingwithMechanics:Rules&Constraints.

SebastianKrumhausen.EnhancingInteractionthroughProductServiceSystems.

Keynote
TuuliMattelmki SeniorResearcher AaltoUniversity,SchoolofArtandDesign Helsinki,Finland

Educating Sensitivity Human-Sized Design Research

Designersprofessionalimageisconstantlyintransformation.Designresearchis stronglypartofthischange.MostoftheresearchIhavebeeninvolvedinwithin usercentred design can be described as human sized. We have looked at everyday life situations with a human perspective. The user studies done in collaborationwithcompanieshaveoftenbeenverysmall.Themethodsthatwe tend to apply are mostly about engaging people to reflect and share their experiences and ideas for potential designs, not about objectively measuring, observingortesting.Thehumansizedapproachdealswithdesignempathy,the abilityoftryingtostepintoanotherpersonsshoesandunderstandingtheworld from that perspective, and furthermore using that understanding for design. Moreover,intheearlyconceptdesignphaseuserresearchispartofthecreative design exploration in which inspiration, envisioning and wondering are as importantaswellstructuredfacts. InmytalkIwillfirstbrieflyintroducethenewAaltoUniversityandthecurrent situationofdesignresearchinit.ThenIwilltellabouttheapproachesdeveloped withindesignresearchincludingexperiencedesignandempathicdesign,design probes and codesign. I will also show the novel application areas of design research approaches. Through examples and cases I aim to draw a picture of whatisvaluableinhumansizeddesignresearch.

Workshops
Theconferenceproceedingsincludeastringofworkshops. Theparticipantsareinvitedtoengageinadesignchallenge,andcollectivelyexperience workingwithconcreteundertakingsindifferentphasesofdesign.

DAY1DAY2

A. Go, observe and ask!

D. The Board Game

F. Prototype it! B. The tree of values E. The Body Storm

C. Finding the hidden

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Thinking Small to Think Big: Designing Abstractions to Explore New Forms of Interaction
Scott Meadows
Malm University Lilla Varvsgatan 6, LGH 1103 211 17 Malm, Sweden hello@scottmeadows.ca

ABSTRACT
This paper will explore the idea of designing Interaction Abstractions small, pieces of an interactive artifact as a method for exploring new forms of interaction. The author believes that this approach is a valuable first step in the design process when the intended interactivity will be unfamiliar to users.

that lights up in response to different physical and virtual interaction methods.

Keywords
Interaction design, prototyping, methods. Interaction Abstractions, experience

1. INTRODUCTION
As an interaction designer, its easy to get caught up in the business of designing experiences; of solving problems by crafting and testing prototypes that try as best as possible to represent their context of use in the real world. But, what if the problems a designer is trying to solve warrant forms of interaction that have yet to be developed? The author proposes a new method in interactive prototyping Interaction Abstractions that aims to help designers in this scenario. Whereas traditional prototyping methods focus on testing and iteration on the way to a final product, interactions abstractions are exploratory in nature. The author believes that the focus on exploration and not a final design outcome can help designers to better understand the qualities and shortcomings of interaction methods they seek to create. This work is based on empirical evidence gathered from two Interaction Design Masters projects at Malm University: 1) Smart Surface a four-week physical computing project created by the author and two fellow students and 2) Stacked User Inputs a Masters thesis project created by Rob Nero. Figure 1. Rob Neros SUI Cube. The SUI Cube was designed such that it focus[es] on the concept of stacking [inputs] and not on any specific contextualization of stacking [4]. Its purpose was to abstract the core concept of stacking inputs, gain feedback on the interaction of using the cube, and spark ideas of contextualizing the concept with the tester [4]. Though Nero does not classify his approach as a methodology, the basis for Interaction Abstractions grew out of this work. The team was inspired by his idea of context-free interactivity and wanted to replicate and formalize this strategy.

2. BACKGROUND
Interaction Abstractions are context-free interactive artifacts designed for the purpose of exploring a new interaction method. They can help designers understand the use qualities and technical limitations of an interaction before it is implemented in a practical application.

2.2 Smart Surface

In Smart Surface, a group of students attempted to solve a problem that plagued them throughout many of their group meetings: food and drink cooling down or heating up beyond their ideal temperatures. As an example, it was not uncommon for a cup of coffee to cool down to the point of being undrinkable during periods of intense group discussion. Using Dourishs theory of embodied interaction as a starting point, the group set out to create a novel [form] of interactionby integrating computer technology with the everyday physical world [1]. The concept they landed on was this: a table that could sense the temperature of items placed on it and heat-up or cool down around them to maintain it. Though the original intention was to build a fully functional prototype, it became clear several weeks into the project and not

2.1 Inspiration
The inspiration for this approach came out of Rob Neros Masters Thesis on Stacked User Inputs [4]. In this work, he proposes combining physical and touch-based interfaces creating Stacked User Inputs to capitalize on the benefits of both interaction styles. To demonstrate this, Rob created an LED cube

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for lack of trying that this was impractical both in terms of timelines and technical feasibility. The surprising realization, however, was that this did not matter. In this context - where the core interactivity of the concept had never been tested with users a full prototype posed few benefits over a smaller, more focused design.

The project team tried to overcome this problem by creating a prototype that provided a partial indication of its context. The Smart Surface was placed inside an IKEA Lack side table, as the team believed that this would root the interaction in a familiar context common table surfaces without being so specific as to limit user interpretations.

2.3 Related Methodologies

There are handful of related and perhaps, overlapping prototyping methodologies which bare some similarity to Interaction Abstractions. Here, the paper will review the relevant literature in this area and make some distinctions about how Interaction Abstractions are unique. In her paper on tangible mockups, Brandt discusses the role of tangible mockups play on the way to designing a final product [5]. Interaction Abstractions fall outside the realm of mockups because they are not designed with the intention of reaching a particular end goal. They are used for the purpose of exploration, for provoking questions and drawing attention to technical and design issues in artifacts that demonstrate novel interactivity. For this reason, Interaction Abstractions more closely resemble what Sundstm et al are calling Inspirational Bits [6]. Inspirational Bits are hardware and software built with the aim of exposing one or several of the dynamic properties of a digital properties [6]. The two are related in that that neither strives for a particular end goal: the intention [was] not to solve a specific problemor to achieve some predefined endpoint. It was to see whether a focused investigationmight open us up to anything different and/or unexpected [6]. However, they differ in their purposes. Inspirational Bits are used to help multidisciplinary design teams understand the properties of a digital material [6]. Interaction Abstractions are used to help design teams gauge the technical feasibility of a concept and to help them understand how users perceive a new form of interactivity.

Figure 2. Setting up Smart Surface. Taking a cue from Neros work with the SUI Cube, the group decided to create an abstraction of their idea; to design the core aspects of the interactivity while ignoring the more technically challenging parts of the prototypes functionality. They shifted the goal of their project from being very specific How can we keep coffee on a table warm? - to a more abstract purpose What could it mean to have a temperature sensing table? The result of this work was a surface that sensed the temperature of items placed on it and correspondingly turned on red and blue LEDs.

3. BENEFITS
The author proposes that creating Interaction Abstractions is a sound approach for designing new forms of interaction; that making and testing abstractions is a valuable first step when the interactivity in an artifact will be new and unfamiliar to users. This approach can provide designers with valuable insight that might later allow them to create compelling interactions for users. Interaction Abstractions can help designers: 1) By allowing them to understand how the technology might be used in unexpected ways and 2) To realize design issues that can only be appreciated through prototyping and user testing.

Figure 3. Blue LEDs glowing during setup. In his thesis, Nero does note that there may be a few shortcomings associated with testing abstract interactions. He writes that the lack of context potentially prevented meaning and independence form being important to the [testers] [4].

3.1 Unexpected Uses

Firstly, it is often the case that new technology is used in ways that is not intended by the designer. According to Dourish, people often find ways of using technology that are unexpected or unanticipated [1]. Buchenau and Suri commented on this same phenomenon, writing that [p]eople will have experiences with the things that we design, whether we intend them or not, and in ways that we cannot hope entirely to predict [2].

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Using and testing design abstractions is one method that can be used for accessing and realizing these unexpected uses early in the design process. By building a very simple prototype one that focuses only on the core interactivity of a concept in an abstracted form designers can start to understand the uses that people might imagine for a technology. As Buchenau and Suri wrote, [s]ometimes it is important to engage clients and other team members in radical design ideas before they are fully resolved [2]. New technology has the potential to be used in ways unimagined by the designer and the intentionally unfinished nature of an interaction abstraction lends itself to the development and conceptualization of such ideas by non-designers.

subjectively [2]. Lo-fidelity prototypes do not accurately represent interaction and behavior in physical prototyping projects like Smart Surface. The author believes that they do not create a real representation of these experiences for users and as such, fail to create true understanding. This makes it difficult for designers to uncover the issues in a physical prototyping concept using these methods. Instead, the author proposes that designers use Interaction Abstractions as a means of accessing this information. Because of their focus on core interactivity, Interaction Abstractions can create a truer understanding for users and give designers a chance to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the interaction methods that they are exploring. This is particularly important in instances where like physical computing projects - the cost and resources required to build a full prototype are high and the results can be unreliable. In regards to TUI projects, Blackwell et. al commented on these costs, writing that even where the required behaviour of a TUI is technically feasible, researchers must struggle with reliability and repeatability to make working prototypes. If these are to be deployed and evaluated in context, there are even greater challenges [3]. Interaction Abstractions give designers a chance to test and refine small, iterative pieces of an interaction method without the investment required for creating more complete prototypes.

Figure 3. Hot Table Testing. This methodology proved useful in the Smart Surface project. Once testers had the prototype in hand, they naturally imagined alternative uses of the technology that was developed. They were able to see our prototype for what it was a piece of the interaction puzzle and further imagine how and where such an abstraction could be used in other applications. Below is a sampling of some of responses we received from users while testing Smart Surface: What if it could be used to heat up your lunch? What if it could be used to cool down food that is too hot? Could you play tic-tac-toe using hot and cold drinks? This would be really cool in a caf when youre doing work. My coffee always gets too cold before I can drink it. I wonder if it would work in a restaurant kitchento keep food warm before the waiter takes it to customers. Could you use this to cool down a laptop that overheats?

Figure 4. Dinner Plate with a ridge. As an example, during the Smart Surface project, the interaction abstraction the group created gave them a chance to discover one of the key flaws in their design concept. They quickly learned that their table was largely incompatible with modern dishware. Because of the way the temperature-sensing piece of the abstraction was designed, it was a requirement that the dishware used with the table be flat on the bottom. Most dishware items have a small ridge on their underside that minimizes contact between them and the surfaces they sit on so this created problems during the initial testing of the tables functionality. To

Had the table been finished; a complete prototype, it would have not evoked the same sort of focused discussion and imagination that the interaction abstraction encouraged [5].

3.2 Design Issues

According to the Buchenau and Suri [2], interaction has to be experienced to be understood. They write that experience is, by its nature, subjective and the best way to understand the experiential qualities of an interaction is to experience it

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overcome these, the group sought out and used flat-bottomed dishware for the duration of their testing. Similarly, the users testing Smart Surface uncovered other issues in the design that were largely unknown to the design team. The most of telling of these were as follows: "It would be better if it responded a little quicker because I don't really know what's happening right now". "It's difficult to see the lights when the cup is right on top of them. It would be better to have more LEDs". How do I know that this wont burn or freeze my arm? Whats stopping that from happening?

5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank Rob Nero [4] and Tony Olsson, whose projects and feedback are largely responsible for the ideas expressed in this paper. I may have been the one to write about Interaction Abstractions but Rob and Tony are the ones who, although perhaps unknowingly, really came up with the methodology. Secondly, I would like to thank Marcus Ghaly and Melchior Brislinger for their continued support and collaboration throughout the Smart Surface project.

In the context of the Smart Surface project, these limitations do not represent failures. They simply represent key learnings that could later be taken into further phases and iterations of the projects design. Because the intention was to explore a new form of interaction the concept of a temperature-sensing table it can almost be expected that issues like this will arise. Interaction Abstractions provide a means of discovering these problems before the desired interactivity is embedded in a more practical application.

6. REFERENCES
[1] Paul Dourish. 2004. What we talk about when we talk about context. Personal Ubiquitous Comput. 8, 1 (February 2004), 19-30. DOI= http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00779-003-0253-8 [2] Marion Buchenau and Jane Fulton Suri. 2000. Experience prototyping. In Proceedings of the 3rd conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques (DIS '00), Daniel Boyarski and Wendy A. Kellogg (Eds.). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 424-433. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/347642.347802 [3] Alan F. Blackwell, George Fitzmaurice, Lars Erik Holmquist, Hiroshi Ishii, and Brygg Ullmer. 2007. Tangible user interfaces in context and theory. In CHI '07 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems (CHI '07). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2817-2820. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1240866.1241085 [4] Rob Nero. 2010. Stacked User Inputs. Masters ThesisMalm University. (http://stackedui.com/) [5] Eva Brandt. 2007. How Tangible Mock-Ups Support Design Collaboration. Knowledge, Technology & Policy 20(39), pp. 179-192. [6] Sundstrm, P., Taylor, A., Grufberg, K., Wirstrm, N., Solsona Belenguer, J., and Lundn, M. 2010. Inspirational Bits: Towards a shared understanding of the digital material. CHI: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

4. CONCLUSIONS
As much as they want to, designers cannot be other people. The amount of feedback they can process and the range of ideas that they can develop is very much limited to their own perception. For this reason, it is important that designers create interactive artifacts that lend themselves not only to user feedback, but also to extension and further conceptualization on the part of nondesigners. Interaction Abstractions provide an avenue for accessing this information while simultaneously giving designers the chance to recognize concept issues early in a projects lifespan. Particularly in cases where the interaction in a concept is novel when the interactivity will be new and unfamiliar to users Interaction Abstractions are a valuable starting point for exploring new interactivity early in the design process.

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Creative engagement as a data gathering method

Miguel Peres
Ume Institute of Design Ume University SE-90187, Ume, Sweden +46-72-2015965

Vivian Lo
Ume Institute of Design Ume University SE-90187, Ume, Sweden +46-73-0983249

m.peres@gmail.com

lovivi@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
This paper outlines an user-centered and participatory method to collect data on coffee consumption within a school setting. It discusses the benefits and shortcomings of the qualitative method and how it compares against the tradition surveying. The method relies on the concept of interactive art, in which the audience is engaged in a creative pursuit as well as the artist [4]. By providing participants with the tools to record their consumption on a public installation, the medium itself became a narrative over time. The installation engaged participants by providing feedback of their own, and peers, caffeine consumption. It also allowed them to improvise and tinker, as well as, interact through the medium. These agents of interactivity and the dynamic nature of the installation provided another layer of engagement and incentive for participation. The result from this qualitative method was an organic and engaging data map formed through a communal effort.

countries with the highest coffee consumption per capita. We were interested to reveal the caffeine consumption at our school and the correlations with different factors including nationality, education program and living habits. The goal was to come up with a creative method to collect data in an specific environment of our choice during a period ranging from one week to two months. Having people answering questions about their daily habits and preferences is no easy task. It tends to become even harder if the data needs to be gathered during extended periods of time. Traditional methods of surveying like fax and mail are becoming obsolete; e-mail and electronic surveys are no exception. A study conducted by [8] shows that the average response rate of e-mails surveys has decreased from 61.5% in 1986 to 24.0% in 2000. This paper describes a experimental data gathering method based in the model of creative engagement within interactive art, it aims to increase the average response rate in short and long term periods. In interactive art, the audience is invited to interact and participate in the realization of the work itself; "Therefore, the audience actively constructs the artwork in an essentially creative process." [1]. The proposed method is outlined in this paper according to the three categories proposed by [4] to describe interactive artworks: Attractors: concerns with capturing the attention of the audience. Sustainers: functions to maintain the initial attention. Relaters: keeps the audience interested in long-term periods. We believe that the model of creative engagement can be used to stimulate the user participation in data gathering experiments. However, further studies need to be conducted on the reliability of collected data.

Categories and Subject Descriptors

H.5.3 [Group and Organization Interfaces]: Asynchronous interaction, Theory and models.

General Terms
Design, Experimentation, Theory.

Keywords
Audience engagement, data gathering, design probes, interactive art.

1. INTRODUCTION
The method outlined here was developed during an experimental project between the Ume Institute of Design - UID and IDEO, Munich. The goal of this project was to introduce the graduates in the Master of Interaction Design to the practices of data gathering and data visualization through free exploration and reflection. Being in Sweden for a short period of time, we have experienced and come to love the tradition of FIKA, a social institution that includes coffee and something sweet. Sweden is also one of the

2. METHOD
The essence of the method was to have a large installation to engage students to participate. Photographs of all the students in the school were printed in A4-sized and stylized to look like old polaroids. They were appended with the respective student names or nickname and then attached to a white wall in alphabetical order (See Figure 1).

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Figure 1. Students polaroids attached to the corridor wall. Within the constraints of the availability of free spaces and walls in the school, the location of the installation was strategically chosen where most student traffic would occur. Posters with instructions were placed at either end of the installation. Below these poster were sheets of dot-shaped stickers that participants could use to track theirs caffeinated drink consumption (See Figure 2). Four colors were provided, with each indicating a different caffeinated drink: espresso, coffee (regular, cappuccino etc), tea and hot chocolate.

2.1Attractors
One of the major problems of data gathering system is the direct reliance on users conscious input to gather data, and the danger of becoming invasive. As demonstrated by [9], the method of contacting the target audience can influence not only the response rate but also the answers themselves. In order to avoid that, we opted to rely on the use of attractors to establish the first contact with the audience. Attractors are the artifacts responsible for capturing people attention and inviting them to interact with an art installation. [1]. The following attractor are present in the system:

Figure 2. Stickers correspond to the amount of caffeine consumption. According to [6], gratifications can be divided into those based on the content of the media (content gratifications) and those based on the actual experience of using the media (process gratifications).

2.1.1 Immediate recognition

The possibility of recognizing ourselves and people close to us through the photographies in the wall, allows us to perceive the system and understand the connection between system and self [1].

2.2.1 Content gratification

2.1.2 Contrast with the environment

The installation occupies the whole wall of a corridor (8,6m x 1,5m) and its colorful appearance contrasts with the grey surrounding ambient. According to [5], our visual system, through constant evolutionary adaption, became very effective in detecting patterns. These patterns allows us to perceive if things belongs together or not.

By browsing through the photographs, the user can identify familiar and unfamiliar faces. Looking at pictures is a powerful experience as shown on the study conducted by [6] where the ability of viewing photos was one of the main reasons for the success of Facebook.

2.2.2 Process gratification

2.2 Sustainers
Sustainers are the agents responsible for keeping the audience attention once the art installation is perceived [1]. Our data gathering system uses gratifications as the main incentive to keep the user attention and to maintain constant inputing of data. According to [3], incentives can significantly increase the chances of heaving people answering surveys. In a study conducted over effects of gratifications on mail surveys response rates, the inclusionof rewards (both monetary and non-monetary) in the initial mailing increased the response rates by 19.1 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively.

Interacting with the system helps the user to link the person identity nodes - PINs of the participants with the semantic information units - SIUs. Strengthening these relations makes the process of naming a face, which is particularly difficult [2], easier and less time consuming. This can be very useful in a social environment such as an university.

2.3 Relaters
The main concern of tracking individual data over a period of time is the gradual decline of interest. Therefore emphasis was placed to engage participants periodically to maintain consistent data input. This type of engagement is classified as a relater in [4], an aspect that help a continuing relationship to grow so that the audience returns to the work on future occasions.

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During the period of data collection, three main contributors in this installation were observed to work together symbiotically as a relater.

2.3.1 Anticipation

The photos in the installation serve as a blank canvas that can grow and evolve by collaborative data input over time. The anticipation provoked by the indefinite aspect of the final outcome as well as the narrative/organic nature of the change over time served to engage users [7].

2.3.2 Creative participation

Figure 3. Photos taken from one of the students Polaroids between the first and third day of the project.

The boundaries of data collection were set by providing a canvas (picture) and paint (dots), but the way the data was contributed was open to the participants discretion. The act of creating induces a sense of belonging to the product, and in turn provokes participants to anticipate the subsequent changes. A range of creative and participant behavior were observed, with some of the participants utilizing the dots as paint to create patterns and add personality to their own photo. Some used the dots to create a character and some used them to create bar charts that provided a quantitative feedback. The unfinished patterns drew participants back to continue with their data input. Another observation was the impromptu tinkering of the dots to indicate different form of caffeine consumption. Marker drawings on their own and others photos were also seen as a form of expression. The different ways of data input in turn became inspirations to other participants as they entered their data, and at the same time allowed them to reflect on their own caffeine consumption.

4. COMPARISON OF METHODS
In mid-point of the collection period, we were interested to compare the response rates and the results found with more traditional methods, particularly surveying. With that in mind, we conducted a brief email survey to gather more information on the same group of students and identify their correlations with caffeine consumption. These attributes included living habits (smoking and sleeping hours) and general demographics. The email survey was sent to the same set of students whowere included in the installation. The data from the email survey was inputed automatically into a spreadsheet, which could be easily manipulated for analysis. This was much easier and more efficient than the time-consuming manual method of photo-taking and counting of dots on the polaroids on the installation. Yet, the response rate was significantly lower. Only 35 out of 135 students responded to the email survey, which was far below the 84 students that participated in the installation. This indicates that the installation method was far more successful in engaging students to participate in the data collection.

2.3.3 Sociability

The last agent of engagement was the opportunity for sociability provided by the installation. Two main types of social activities were observed. The first type occurred in a communal situation. Caffeine is usually consumed over Fika, which is a social activity in Swedish culture. The need to input data extended the social ground to the installation, and in turn drew new participants and generated discussions. The second type was typically carried out individually, where messages and comments were left anonymously on the photos. Synonymous to the drawings and messages in public bathroom, dialogues were formed through anonymous individuals.

5. CONCLUSION
Analyzing the data gathered during the project, we observed that the engagement of about half of the participants has diminished after the period of 10 Days. It was also possible to perceive a suddenly increase of participation after the third day, which we assume to be related to the time the installation was perceived. Due to the open nature of this project, the system served to log not only the caffeine consumption of the participants but also as a platform for other textual (messages) and non-textual (drawings) records. Although these unexpected data sets revealed interesting facts, they made the work of extracting reliable information harder. It demanded a considerable amount of work and time to filter this data and determine its relation to the topic of our research, the amount of caffeine consumed. We conclude that, the model of creative engagement can be used in a data gathering system to improve the audience response rate. However, we believe that the method outlined in this paper is more suitable for contexts that require relatively small sample because of the time-consuming nature of synthesizing the data. Due to its open nature, this method can be easily adapted to collect qualitative and non-sensitive data. We believe that the information collected though this method, can be validated and further augmented through the use of traditional research methods, like surveying and interviewing.

3. DATA COLLECTION
The data collection was carried out over a period of 17 days. At the end of each day, a photo of each students polaroid was taken to record the students total consumption that day. Once the data gathering period was over, all the pictures were transferred to a computer and analyzed. By comparing the amount of dots in the students polaroids in a given day against the the previous day, we could track the individual caffeine consumption on that day and other qualitative data. This usually included unexpected data, like drawings, text messages and the pattern formed by the dots (See Figure 3). The acquired data was transferred to an electronic spreadsheet where the results were compared and pre-visualized as basic charts.

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6. REFERENCES
[1] Bilda, Z. Edmonds, E. Candy, L. 2008. Designing for creative engagement, Design Studies, 9(6), 525-540. [2] Burton, A.M. Bruce, V. 1992. I recognize your face but I can't remember your name: a simple explanation?. British Journal of Psychology, 83(1), 45-60. [3] Church, A. H. 1993. Estimating the effect of incentives on mail survey response rates: A meta-analysis. Public Opinion Quarterly, 57, 62-79. [4] Edmonds, E. Muller, L. Connell, M. 2006. On creative engagement. Visual Communication, 5(3), 307-322. [5] Hekkert, P. 2006. Design Aesthetics: Principles of Pleasure in Product Design. Psychology Science, 48, 157-172.

[6] Joinson, Adam N. 2008. Looking at, looking up or keeping up with people?: motives and use of facebook. In Proceeding of the twenty-sixth annual SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI '08). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1027-1036. [7] Seif El-Nasr, M. 2007. Interaction, Narrative, and Drama Creating an Adaptive Interactive Narrative using Performance Arts Theories. Interaction Studies, 8(2). [8] Sheehan, K.B. 2001. E-mail Survey Response Rates: A Review. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 6 (2). [9] Wiseman, F. 2009. The Effects of the Initial Mode of Contact on the Response Rate and Data Quality in an Internet-Based College Satisfaction Survey. Methodological Innovations Online, 4(2), 12-20.

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Dimensions of Interactive Exhibiting:

A Look at Three Interaction Design Student Exhibitions
David Marshall
Chalmers University of Technology

Ruxandra Teodoru
Chalmers University of Technology

davmar@student.chalmers.se

ruxandra@student.chalmers.se

ABSTRACT
This paper will address the aspects of exhibiting student projects in the eld of interaction design. It brings in focus three exhibitions as case studies, assessing the factors behind them. The article aims at drawing guidelines that can be of help in students future exhibiting eorts.

Keywords
installations; interaction design; user experience; public settings; exhibition

The background of the visitors was determined through direct questions as well as a previous knowledge of them personally. As metrics for the success of the exhibits, we considered the level of visitors activity [1], the time the visitors spent discussing and trying out an exhibit, as well as the overall visitor coverage it got. Along with observations and notes, numerous discussions with visitors and participants in the exhibitions framed our evaluation.

3.

THE EXHIBITIONS

1.

INTRODUCTION

As students being trained in interaction design, exposing ones work to peer review through various forms of exhibiting is a powerful tool for improvement and for gaining recognition in the eld. This paper aims at discussing the aspects of exhibiting interactive works at a graduate school level in order to become an aid in preparing for similar events. This discussion is held through the perspectives of three specic exhibitions which the authors have been part of and evaluated. What this paper is not aiming at is a review of the exhibits presented throughout these events on an individual level. The reasons we do not look into the details of each exhibit are the fact that we are interested in putting forth the factors with which these events in themselves act on how these projects are regarded and the demands they might raise from a project even before its creation.

The three exhibitions discussed in this paper took place as part of the Interaction Design MSc. programme curriculum at Chalmers University of Technology and showcased the projects developed throughout three dierent courses. For each of the projects, students worked in groups of three to ve.

3.1

Exhibition A

The rst exhibition presented the student projects developed throughout the Ubiquitous Computing course. More specifically the 2009 edition1 which showcased fteen exhibits. The development time for these projects was ve weeks.The majority of the exhibits came in the form of household items enhanced to allow for more functionality than what the user might usually expect of them. Types of Visitors This exhibitions title took the name of the course. Being of a more reduced size, lasting one day and mostly aimed at presenting the works of the students to a more familiar audience, this exhibition was set within the departments grounds and was advertised through posters placed around the department building as well as through word-of-mouth within various student groups. This setting drew mostly, if not exclusively, people from within the programme, students as well as sta members, and their related family. Visitors of this event showed technical interest in the exhibits and less concern with the design concept behind them. Throughout the day, most of the discussions were related to the mechanics and software behind the projects. Successful Exhibits No exhibits stood out particularly more so than others at this exhibition. Originality and practicality of the exhibits were factors that helped to make exhibits slightly more successful. One exhibit in particular did not get as much public
1

2.

EVALUATION METHODS

Three interaction design student exhibitions make the case studies of this paper. Both authors, although as part of different teams, have been exhibitors in either two or all of the exhibitions. One of the authors has been actively involved in organizing two of the exhibitions, as well. Throughout their contribution to the projects and the events, the authors have observed the types of visitors that have attended, the popularity of certain exhibits and the problems that arose.

http://tiny.cc/ubicomp

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attention. The space allocated to this project was set behind a wall that hid it from the ow of visitors. The exhibitor in this case had to personally guide the visitors towards the exhibit. Issues Due to the limitations of the space, the exhibits were located in close proximity to one another. As a consequence, some adjacent exhibits conicted with each other. For example, if one project needed low lighting in order to function properly it resulted in the neighbouring ones being poorly lit. This proximity also meant that the sounds of the exhibits bled into one another.

3.2

Exhibition B
Figure 1: Group of visitors interacting with Totem: Dance! designers. As mentioned, the majority of the projects demanded students to be on site, a fact which led to visitors not exploring spaces that were not marked by exhibitors being present. These were static installations, that allowed for no interaction with the user and were therefore left unattended. Issues An issue that arose during the initial setup of the exhibition was the placement of exhibits within the space. Some exhibits needed to be moved from their initial positions due to the ambient light aecting them, resulting in either low screen visibility or interference with optical recognition systems. This also led to the need to recalibrate exhibits and to enclose some exhibits to block the light. Setup each morning was further complicated due the exhibition space not being a secure place to leave expensive equipment overnight. As such many exhibitors had to recalibrate and retest their setups each day. Most of the projects required the students to be present in order to describe and walk the users through them.

Throughout the second semester of study, the rst year students of the Interaction Design programme develop largerscaled projects which are showcased in an end-of-year exhibition. Here, we look at the 2010 edition which had thirteen exhibits and was called IDXPO102 . The project development time in this case was aproximately ten weeks. Types of Visitors As this is a bigger event it undergoes more planning and benets from more exposure. In 2010, this exhibition was set in the Lindholmen Science Park, a place that hosts numerous IT companies headquarters, and spanned over four days. The location of the event was selected by the teaching committee. Beneting from more advertising eorts posters were placed across public interest points around the city and university campuses - the event drew a larger number of visitors. Due to the nature of the location and the theme of the event, the exhibition attracted people with a higher interest in technology, either rooted in their studies or eld of work. A signicant number of visitors were employees of the companies located in the science park and students of the various technical programmes within the university. Throughout our observations, we noted that the vast majority of the visitors showed interest in the means of interacting with the exhibits, with little to no interest in the concept behind them or the technical aspects involved. They either played or tried out an exhibit and moved onto the next one, without inquiring more about it. Very few discussions were held on the background of the projects, while more revolved around their features. Successful Exhibits Certain exhibits soon became the visitors favourites. Bring Your Own Controller3 , a multi-player collaborative gaming platform, was one of the projects that kept the interest of its participants at times for hours. A couple more exhibits caught the attention of passers-by who soon found themselves trying out physically challenging body postures or disco dancing. These were all fast-paced, multiplayer platforms that allowed for group interaction. At the other end of things, a few exhibits went almost unnoticed throughout the event. Projects that were placed futher on the second oor of the exhibition space were less visited. Another factor seemed to be the absence of a projects
2 3

3.3

Exhibition C

The last exhibition discussed here is the rst in its edition, the Augmented Bodies4 exhibition, which presented the works developed throughout the Augmented Body course at Chalmers University of Technology. This was a smaller sized class and had just ve exhibits with the exhibition occurring in early 2011. The ideation and development work for these projects took aproximately ve weeks.All the exhibits dealt with ways of augmenting the visitors own bodily experiences and required interaction on their part. Types of Visitors Unlike the previous events, the location for this one was a vote between two possible sites. The rst proposed site was the one that had been previously used for IDXPO10, while the second one was a rather new art gallery set in a part of Gothenburg that hosts numerous art and design studios and is home to several museums. The participating students and the teacher of the course had a debate outlining the pros and
4

http://www.idxpo.se/ http://idxpo.se/group5

http://www.ixdcth.se/augmentedbodies11

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cons of having the exhibition in either one of these locations, the people we would attract and the impact of the exhibits. Upon voting, the second location was chosen. A newsletter announcing the event was sent out to the gallerys mailing list, which targeted individuals and collectives within the art scene, as well as a couple of local daily newspapers. The students of the course produced a website and a poster that covered the event, which was spread across the campus and several museums.

restored in order to be properly presented. Interestingly, the visitors did not appear to notice the exhibits misbehaviours. During a couple of instances, when a project was entirely unresponsive, there was no decrease in visitors interest.

4.

CONCLUSIONS

After presenting the three dimensions of each exhibition we will now detail the conclusions reached. These conclusions should prove useful to keep in mind by other students when planning and executing an exhibition. Types of Visitors Due to the locations of the three exhibitions and the advertising channels used, the people who attended were notably dierent in their backgrounds. The rst two exhibitions have been set in spaces that accommodated a more technical-savvy audience, while the last one opened in front of a more diverse crowd with a predominantly artistic background. Having these two main types of visitors led to a dierence in the way the exhibits were introduced to the public, in the focus of the discussions between the students exhibiting and the visitors and lastly in a completely dierent understanding of the projects being exhibited. Knowing your audience has proved important to how a prototype is perceived in previous research, as well[3]. Furthermore, the spaces of the exhibitions imprinted on the attendees a certain visiting behaviour. The informality in exhibiting found in the rst two spaces gave place for a more random ow in moving from one exhibit to the other. The third space however, through its museum-like ambiance imposed a more formal etiquette and visitors would move in a more structured order starting with the exhibits closest to the door and carefully exploring everything to the last one. Successful Exhibits Not all exhibits are created equal and some denitely enjoyed more success than others. At the most basic, an interaction design exhibit needs to be interactive. Having a poster and a prototype that do not encourage any form of interaction is very unlikely to be well received. Along with a high degree of interactivity through multiple access points, support for group interaction specically allowing for more than one person at a time is benecial. Our conclusion nds support in previous research that highlights the importance of aording for group interaction[1, 2]. This often encourages a crowd to form and observe the peoples interaction. Additionally this can help to overcome some visitors shyness of exploring exhibits alone. The space of the exhibition plays an important role in how some of the exhibits will be perceived. Those placed in a place or on a oor harder to reach by the visitors will get less attention. As mentioned, in the rst exhibition the exhibitor of the project placed behind a wall had to guide visitors himself towards it. During the second exhibition, exhibits placed on the second oor enjoyed less public. Meanwhile, the third exhibition space was an open gallery that gave equally visible places to each of the exhibits. The importance of spatial aordances has been previously discussed and established as important to an exhibits exposure[4].

Figure 2: Augmented Bodies exhibition space Over the course of three days, tens of visitors came daily to try out the projects exhibited at 3:e V aningen5 . The ve haptic exhibits engaged their participants in compelling experiences. From from regressing to a fetal stage to sensing the Wall Street crash, attendees of the event tried it all. After trying a project, discussions were easily sparked between the students and the visitors. People debated the use of technology and whether the students behind the projects stood as advocates of further computer ubiquity. After multiple talks with the visitors, as observers of the event, we soon realized that their backgrounds were extremely diverse, ranging from architecture to new media art, dance and other walks of life. The questions we were asked, as exhibitors, had little to do with the technicalities of the projects. Instead we were asked to imagine scenarios in which these concepts would function, their benets to humanity and their ethical implications. Successful Exhibits Given the small number of exhibits, it became impossible to note a popularity trend. Each of the visitors entering the gallery did a full round-up of the exhibits and tried out most of them. After extensively interacting with a project, they spent a couple of minutes talking about it with the designers. Issues Having had only three weeks of actual development work led to prototypes that still required a signicant amount of tweaking. Throughout the three days of exhibiting, these fragile artifacts often broke down and had to be partially
5

http://www.3vaningen.se/

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Issues A similarity found across all three exhibitions was the general lack of robustness of exhibits when stress tested. A direct consequence of the durability of exhibits was the necessity to have a person at hand at all times able to make quick xes when something went wrong. Likewise a range of supplies and tools were needed to facilitate the repairs. The location of the exhibit can also have a large impact on the technicalities of a project and should thus be considered early on in the design. Lighting, space allocated and adjacent exhibits are all factors that will greatly inuence how your exhibit is perceived.

[4] J. D. Wineman and J. Peponis. Constructing Spatial Meaning: Spatial Aordances in Museum Design. Environment and Behavior, 42(1):86109, June 2009.

5.

LESSONS LEARNED

The conclusions reached above are of course framed and limited to the three exhibitions and would benet from the further study of more exhibitions and through the use of quantitative matrices. Nevertheless, we believe the ndings presented here provide useful information to those planning exhibitions and those exhibiting. In summary, we propose a list of points to take away and keep in mind during the design process and planning of an exhibition: know your audience: does a project allow for group interaction? what are their backgrounds and what limitations/ aordances does it set for the project; the location, title and advertising channels of the event should be chosen with a target group in mind ; visit the future exhibiting space beforehand ; how does the space cater to the requirements of the project: lights? sound? ; does a project require the designers to be present and walk the visitors through it or is it self-explanatory?

6.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank Johan Sandsj for his assistance with o this paper and planning during the exhibitions. We thank our colleagues who have agreed to review this article and contribute with valuable feedback.

7.

REFERENCES

[1] E. Hornecker and M. Stifter. Learning from interactive museum installations about interaction design for public settings. Proceedings of the 20th conference of the computer-human interaction special interest group (CHISIG) of Australia on Computer-human interaction: design: activities, artefacts and environments - OZCHI 06, page 135, 2006. [2] M. Fraser, D. Stanton, K. Ng, S. Benford, C. OMalley, J. Bowers, G. Taxn, K. Ferris, and J. Hindmarsh. e Assembling history: achieving coherent experiences with diverse technologies. In Proceedings of the eighth conference on European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, pages 179198. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003. [3] S. Houde and C. Hill. What do prototypes prototype. Handbook of human-computer interaction, 2:367381, 1997.

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Exploring the use of simple tangible interaction techniques in museum exhibitions

Jack Ord Rasmussen IT Bachelor, Aarhus University bogade 34, DK-8200 Aarhus N jack.ord.rasmussen@post.au.dk
ABSTRACT

Marcus Dithmer IT Bachelor, Aarhus University bogade 34, DK-8200 Aarhus N marcus.dithmer@post.au.dk
[10], [12]). When designing a TUI it is possible to include not only our hands to manipulate physical objects but our entire bodies. Fogtmann et al. provide a conceptual framework consisting of three themes and seven parameters in the area of kinesthetic interaction, to better understand the use of our bodies in interaction design [9]. Dourish's embodied interaction deals with our actions in the world and works with the dividing line between an object and the idea of an object [11]. Fishkin presents four levels of embodiment describing how closely coupled the input device is to the output [15]. He goes on to describe metaphor in tangible interfaces and presents a taxonomy based on these two concepts. Visitors come to museums in groups of family or friends and the museum space becomes a space for social activity [14]. Participants contribute to a shared experience and create and explore in collaboration what Battarbee describes as co-experience [16]. What groups do or create together is much more interesting than what people do alone [17] and other research indicates that it is often generally more fun to do things together [18].
CONTEXT STUDIES

In this paper we explore the use of tangible user interfaces in interactive museum exhibitions. We describe two simple concepts of interactivity, and for each concept we present a prototype for a specific exhibition. The aim is to present two basic tangible interaction techniques and then apply the two in a specific context. We present our SheepTag prototype that uses RFID tags to enhance the experience of assembling a sheep skeleton. We explore the use of bodily interaction through Wobbli, an interactive wobble board. We discuss the results and apply two frameworks to our solutions.
INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION

In later years there has been an increasing focus on interactive experiences in cultural contexts and in museums in particular [1]. There is an increasing focus on technological solutions including the so-called mediated spaces and digital museum guides (eg. [1], [3], [4], [5]). By introducing new forms of interaction into the museum such as TUI, new and potentially more engaging experiences are presented to the visitors. Creating a new TUI often involves designing both the physical artifacts and the graphical interface. In some cases the physical aspects are directly mapped to their function (good examples of this can be found in [13]). In a sense it is about getting the computer out of the way and creating a more direct experience by using our familiarity with the everyday world [9]. Ishii and Ullmer describe the rich language of haptic interaction and physical manipulation that people develop when using physical instruments. One of the advantages and goals of tangible user interfaces is to combine this physical language with digital technologies and take advantage of the richness of the physical world in HCI [2]. Our goal is to present forms of interaction that are relatively simple to create and offer alternative solutions that could easily be applied in a number of different specific situations.
RELATED RESEARCH

At Moesgrd Museum [6] we spoke with head of public relations Martin Brandt Djupdrt (MBD). He has also taken part in arranging a number of interactive exhibitions. MBD was very positive towards the idea of an interactive museum. He did however address two problems; one regarding maintenance and the other regarding creation of the exhibitions. He mentioned that projects that are not done in full cooperation with the museum staff have a tendency to be poorly integrated into the rest of the museum and provide an inferior experience for the visitors. At Naturhistorisk Museum [7] we spoke with Jan Gruwier Larsen (JGL), a marine biologist who spends a lot of his time planning exhibitions in the museum. There was an interest in physical objects, which is interesting in regards to our project, as they of course are a key factor in the development of tangible interfaces. At Steno Museet [8] we spoke with Line Stald (LS). She is responsible for the museum's school service and also takes part in the design of new exhibitions. She mentioned the need for durability, a view shared by the other two museums. The museum space is inhabited by a lot of people and whenever this is the case things tend to brake and get worn.

Schmitt et al. [1] have identified a series of advantages and disadvantages in conjunction with the use of Mixed Interactive Systems, including TUI, in their article specifically targeted at interactive experiences at a museum. There are numerous examples of physical interfaces and bodily interaction creating engaging experiences (eg. [4],

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CONCEPTS Physical objects with RFID

This technique uses physical representations of objects, with tags in connection with an RFID reader. In some cases it will be possible to use the actual object instead of just a representation. The visitor places the object or the representation of it on a reader and receives information about that specific object. The visitor gets a closer relation to the exhibited artifacts when physically holding and touching it [13]. Although the technology is well known in the field of HCI, non of the three interviewed museums were using physical tags. They were all very interested in the potential uses for them.
SheepTag

the visitor leans forwards and backwards or from side to side.

Naturhistorisk Museum had a sheep skeleton that visitors, mostly children, could try to assemble correctly using a drawing placed next to the bones. The problem arose when the children were unsure of the correct placement of a bone because they could not recognize it on the drawing.

Figure 2: Wobbli in use at Steno Museet. Wobbli

Figure 1: The finished SheepTag setup at Naturhistorisk Museum.

The prototype we made, that was set up at Steno Museet, used an accelerometer to capture the user input. As the physical input device we use a wobble board with an accelerometer attached underneath, so it is not visible to the user balancing on the board. As the output device we use a touchscreen to support the actions needed in this particular exhibition. (figure 2). The purpose of the instalment is to receive the visitor's opinion on certain dilemmas dealing with his relationship with his own body. The visitor touches the display with his hand, and the film is played. Afterwards the visitor steps up on the wobble board and uses his balance to answer the dilemma.
EVALUATION SheepTag

We have attached an RFID tag to each bone. More specifically, small 3x13mm cylinder shaped glass tags have been drilled into the bones. The area with the tag is marked on the bone with a small red dot. There is a red mark on the wooden surface, so the active area on the bone and the reader are visually connected (figure 1). Nearby there is a screen showing the sheep skeleton assembled correctly, much like the drawing used earlier. When a bone is placed over the reader, the bone on the screen corresponding to the one placed there gets highlighted. This way the children can see exactly which bone they are holding and where it should be placed. In addition to this there is a drawing of a human skeleton, where the similar bone is highlighted simultaneously. The bones can then be placed in a large foam silhouette of a sheep next to the area with the reader.
Bodily interaction

When we evaluated this prototype we did not use the finished setup as shown. At the time it was not completely built and painted yet, so we tested a more raw prototype. It was however fully functional with bones and display. It was tested at Naturhistorisk Museum where both employees and a few guests tried it. Because it was not completely done there was no explaining text. People seemed to need some guidelines. Once the user had discovered how to interact with the system, the rest of the assembling went very well.
Wobbli

This technique is about giving the visitor a whole new experience by interacting with the body as opposed to the much more commonly used eyes and fingers. The idea is to stand in place and use your balancing skills to explore an object or navigate on a monitor. Sensors register when

We observed this prototype over the course of two days,

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after it was built and set up in the museum context. We saw that most of the users came in small groups. One person would stand on the wobble board and the others then stood around that person and helped or laughed. There were a few people who did not finish answering the question, but keep in mind that this concept is intended to be used in a future exhibition where the entire room will revolve around the same subject. It seemed like they all understood the interaction form and could mentally connect the board to the interface.

permanent installation. We discussed the interaction with the museum after about a month. They observed children collaborating while building and also saw some fight with the bones. Most of the users of Wobbli came in small groups, where one person stood on the board and the others stood around that person. If the user had problems balancing or getting onto the board, we noticed people were happy to assist each other while laughing or joking about the person's balancing skills or lack thereof. The above confirms our expectations of the prototypes encouraging or stimulating social experiences.
Placing Wobbli in Fogtmann et al.'s kinesthetic interaction framework

To explore and analyse the interaction in our wobble board prototype we have placed it in Fogtmann et al.'s kinethetic interaction framework [11]. Se figure 3 for a visual representation.
Placing our prototypes in Fishkin's taxonomy for tangible interfaces

To get a sense of how the input is coupled to the output and which metaphors are in play we placed our prototypes in Fishkin's taxonomy. A visual representation of our prototypes in the framework can be seen in figure 4.

Figure 3: Wobbli placed in Fogtmann et al.'s framework for kinesthetic interaction. DISCUSSION The collaborative design process wFigure 4: The prototypes placed in Fishkin's taxonomy for wtangible interaction.

Through our initial interviews, especially with MBD, we learned the importance of close collaboration with the museums. When implementing the techniques we used an iterative design process using feedback from the museums to develop and redesign the physical prototypes. We had meetings for each iteration with the museum staff and had them try our redesigned prototypes.
The social experience

CONCLUSION

We have explored the use of tangible user interfaces in interactive museum exhibitions by presenting two simple concepts: Using RFID tags in physical objects and using the body as an input device. For each concept we developed and tested a prototype. We explored the use of bodily interaction by using a wobble board in a novel way with our Wobbli prototype. The interaction was fun and easy to understand for the visitors but its proper context is needed to see the full potential. We presented SheepTag, a prototype using RFID tags to enhance the experience of assembling a sheep skeleton. People enjoyed assembling the skeleton and the visual cues helped them a lot. It was obvious though, that a better explanation was needed for people to understand exactly what to do.
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Battarbee [16] describes how multimedia products can stimulate conversations, creativity or collaboration and uses the term co-experience. She defines it as a product that gives users a shared experience, that could not happen without the product. SheepTag and Wobbli satisfy this criteria as they trigger a social experience. With SheepTag people would start talking and helping each other. A child was trying to assemble the skeleton when his mother helped him and gave him small clues when he made mistakes. After the initial test the prototype was installed as a

According to our contextual studies, it is clear that the museums set high standards for durability. That said, they were happy to try new technologies and experiment with the exhibition medium. Most importantly we saw that our simple tangible interaction concepts worked, and that it was possible to create engaging experiences that increased interactivity with fairly simple techniques.
REFERENCES

[11] Fogtmann MH, Fritsch J, Kortbek KJ (2008) Kinesthetic interaction - revealing the bodily potential in interaction design. Paper presented at the OZCHI 08: conference of the Computer Human Interaction Special Interest Group (CHISIG) of Australia on ComputerHuman Interaction. [12] Petersen M. G., Krogh P. G., Iversen, and Ludvigsen M. (2004) Aesthetic Interaction - A Pragmatist Aesthetics of Interactive Systems. In Proceedings of the 2004 conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques. ACM Press, pp. 269 276. [13] Djajadiningrat J.P., Wensveen S.A.G., Frens J.W., Overbeeke C.J. (2004) Tangible products: redressing the balance between appearance and action. Spec Issue Tangible Interaction, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 8:294309. [14] Bell G.: Making Sense of Museums The Museum as 'Cultural Ecology', Intel Labs, June 2002. [15] Fishkin K. P. (2004). A taxonomy for and analysis of tangible interfaces, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 8, 5, 347-358. [16] Battarbee K. Defining Co-experience. In: proceedings of Conference on Designing Pleasurable Products and Interfaces. 23-26 June, Pittsburgh. ACM (2003), 109113. [17] Sanders L. Collective Creativity. In LOOP: AIGA Journal of Interaction Design Education, December 2002 Number 6. Accessed 26th November 2010 at http://loop1.aiga.org/content.cfm?Alias=sandersucd. [18] Mkel A., Battarbee K.: It's Fun to do Things Together: Two Cases of Explorative User Studies. Personal Technologies, 3 (1999), 137-140.

[1] Schmitt B., Bach C., Dubois E., Duranthon F.: Designing and Evaluating Advanced Interactive Experiences to increase Visitors Stimulation in a Museum, Augmented Human Conference, April 23, 2010, Megve, France. [2] Ishii, H. and Ullmer, B.: "Tangible bits: Towards seamless interfaces between people, bits and atoms," in Proc. CHI 1997, (1997), ACM Press, 234-241. [3] Wakkary, R., & Hatala, M.: Ec(h)o: Situated play in a tangible and audio museum guide. Paper presented at the Designing interactive Systems (DIS'06), University Park, PA, USA (2006). [4] Wakkary R., Hatala M., Muise K., Tanenbaum K., Corness G., Mohabbati B., Budd J.: Kurio: A Museum Guide for Families, TEI '09: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on TEI. [5] Kortbek K. J., Grnbk K.: Interactive Spatial Multimedia for Communication of Art in the Physical Museum Space, University of Aarhus 2008, MM '08: Proceeding of the 16th ACM international conference on Multimedia [6] www.moesmus.dk (accessed 12th December 2010) [7] www.naturhistoriskmuseum.dk (accessed 12th December 2010) [8] www.stenomuseet.dk (accessed 12th Decem-ber 2010). [9] Dourish P.: Where The Action is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction, MIT Press, October 2001, p. 13-20. [10] Dindler C., Krogh P., Beck S., Stenfeldt L., Nielsen K. & Grnbk, K. 2007. Peephole Experiences Field Experiments with Mixed Reality Hydroscopes in a Marine Center. In Proceedings of DUX2007, ACM Press.

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Programming Tools for Interaction Design Soft-sketching

Alexis Morin
Ume University Ume Municipality Sweden SE-901 87 almo0021@student.umu.se

ABSTRACT
Interaction designers who are not software engineers sometimes feel a need for software and hardware sketches in order to bring their ideas and designs to life. A number of tools open doors to these designers to create quick-and-dirty hardware and software sketches. Even with increasingly fast processors, many of these sketches are built in a way that wastes hardware resources. The number of abstracted, simplified and slow programming languages has created an ecosystem of sluggish runtimes with heavy hardware restrictions. In this paper, In this paper, I propose a return to production programming environments in order to allow hardware and software sketches to fulfill their original goal: deliver a partial look and feel of the idea being designed.

order to obtain a basic grasp of the programming principles of Objective-C[4] on iOS-based[5] platforms is rather straightforward. This paper is about the advantages of going through that process and of using the appropriate programming paradigm for the appropriate task rather than banking on inbetween prototyping and sketching languages.

2.

Native code in action

Categories and Subject Descriptors

D.3.2 Design Languages

General Terms
Languages

Keywords
Software, sketching, programming, languages, performance, hardware, processing

1.

INTRODUCTION

Whilst redesigning the graphic user interface (GUI) for the FixturLaser XA Pro laser industrial shaft alignment device 1, it came to be relevant that a sketch be created in order to better illustrate some decisions that were made during the design process. For multiple reasons which are outside the scope of this paper, the proposed hardware that was to support the design proposal is a computer tablet, regardless of its operating system. The hardware on which the working version of the software sketch was executed on is an iPad[2] for the reason that it was the only tablet hardware available for use at the time. The process for getting any interactive work natively onto an iPad is somewhat convoluted regardless of the technologies used. The options are somewhat limited and always include purchasing development licenses from the Apple developer program[3] and going through a costly and complex process of setting up developer certificates on the device: far from being the best choice for anyone. On the contrary though, the process one has to go through in
1

The graphic user interface design proposal for the redesign of the FixturLaser XA Pro industrial shaft alignment device was completed along the assumptions that it would be presented on an iPad but designed for implementation on any tablet based operating system. It is in this case considered to be relevant to have an as-close-to-final software sketch running on an iPad device[7]. The programming language used to complete this sketch was Objective-C, which happens to be the native language for use on Apple iOS-based devices. The main advantage of working this way lies in the better response time with the device and being able to use the SDK in order to produce a native GUI. Using any other programming language or environment would require the designer to recreate most of the widgets being used from scratch. Using the native SDK therefore translates directly to improved touch interaction with native speeds and framerates. Such performance cannot be achieved by using Adobe Flash[1], JavaScript[28] or any other abstracted programming methods. Producing the content in HTML for tablet browsers also does not bring the native feel that users know from various tablet environments.

Figure 1: A code snippet from the XCode programming environment. It took 4 days of learning Objective-C 2 to acquire knowledge sufficient to program the sketch to the extent desired. It took another 2 days of programming work to achieve a worthwhile result. The architecture of the application was also far from ideal, but this being a UI redesign proposal, my software sketch did exactly what it needed to do. I was able to showcase a sample of
2

The GUI redesign of this device was the main component of a graphic design project at the Ume Institute of Design of the Masters on Interaction Design program. The XA Pro is a touchscreen wireless unit used to assist technicians in the task of industrial shaft alignment. The XA Pro uses a design developed by Semcon AB, based in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The learning was completed through the Apple Computer sanctioned Stanford University Computer Sciences 193-P course.

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the visuals running on the hardware that was chosen for the design. The hardware and software combination used by FixturLaser in their current XA Pro device has remained virtually unchanged since 2005. The hardware runs an embedded Windows CE[18] on a 600MhZ processor with a Flash interface and a Java backend, which is required to interface with the hardware. The overall experience is inconsistent and sluggish at best. Considering what other technologies have evolved since then, the mix of technologies used in the XA Pro would be considered obsolete by current day standards. The software sketch built on iPad in such a short amount of time also goes to show that the cost of changing the software or changing the hardware-software combination would be lesser than the manufacturer originally estimated, this assuming that most of the design specification is already established.

for advanced mathematical visualization as well as physics simulation. OpenCL[12] allows for the execution of kernel level instructions on GPUs (Graphical Processing Unit) and as such can only used in this manner. These are only some examples of specialized programming languages. By doing a minimum of research before committing to creating a software sketch, it is possible to examine the possibilities and make a decision as to which tool is best for the job.

3.2

Designers

In the field of Interaction Design, designers have been blessed with a few platforms in recent years that attempt to make programming somewhat of an easier pill to swallow. Because sketching in software or hardware is often but a portion of the design work, tools and programming environments aimed at designers make away with the better part of the complex programming metaphors that designers seldom take care in learning. Most of these abstracted languages and environments are used to build sketches of applications. A software sketch usually has a limited set of features and serves the purpose of demonstrating only key features in a design. One of these languages is called Processing. It is often used as an introduction to programming for many designers and artists. It is extensible using Java-based libraries but quickly drops in performance when creating graphic-heavy applications. LUA[15] is built on C and focuses on rapid construction of applications and a tight core. Max/MSP[8] is a node-based programming language often used by artists or designers in order to process audio and video signals for installations. When a project gets too complex, projects usually get shifted into production programming languages with real UI libraries and efficient backends.

Figure 2 XAOne design proposal sketch on an iPad simulator

3. 3.1

Programmers at work Computer engineers

3.3

Artists

People who program seek safety. Let me explain: they very seldom explore programming languages outside of what they learned in school and this to their detriment. The end result of such programming will be functional, if only in a good enough manner. For example, Java[23] is a language that students will learn heavily when undertaking a degree in Computer Engineering. It includes several desirable features for people who are learning how to program. Several computer engineers will go through an entire professional career and write anything that is asked of them in Java. If a required software library is inexistent, they will write it in Java, which always does work but is seldom the ideal solution. There exists multiple programming languages because there exists different problems that one can solve in various ways. Erlang[9], developed by Ericsson, is made for solving large concurrency3 problems as well as running without ever stopping. It is even possible to update a module in the code while it is running. That is why it runs telephone lines. Lisp[17] and its dialects or derivatives like SmallTalk[14] and Scheme[26] are performant when dealing with long lists of data. R[25] is widely used in the field of statistics applications. MATLAB[16] is used
3

Many contemporary artists use the digital world as a canvas. The artists working in the field of Computatin Arts and Cyber Arts, for example, often create pieces that compell the viewer through the use of digital media, projections, ambient sound, and installations. Here is the story of NextText, which is a good example of the argument I support in this paper. NextText is a software library for the manipulation of typographic symbols written for Processing by Elie Zananiri in 2007. It was featured in some typography-centered pieces by Jason Lewis, such as What They Speak When They Speak to Me. [13] Lewis of OBX Labs[21] quickly realized that the performance of NextText was lacking. Indeed, once 50 typographical shapes or more were displayed on screen, the application would suffer from a noticeable decrease in framerate. To remedy the situation, Lewis had Mr. Softie completely written by Bruno Nadeau. Mr. Softie is a standalone application that combines most if not all of what NextText can do, but this time in a suitable programming language. This time however it was made with a C++[27] core and QT[20] user interface. The rewrite of NextText allowed for improved framerates and the capability of an increasing number of simultaneous actions to a level that it would never have been able to achieve previously. The use of a lower-level language improved performance in the manipulation of typographic characters. It has permitted the creation of typographically complex art pieces such as Muds [11]. This is a perfect example of a design-related project that was initially built using the wrong tools for the job; its path was

The simultaneous occurrence of events or circumstances [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concurrence]

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then corrected due to necessity and it is as such a better-adapted tool today.

hardware sketches take extra care into creating their software sketches by learning about the programming languages that could potentially drive those sketches. Just like how graphics designers will strive to achieve a pixel perfect design, interaction designers should share the same attention to detail. It is oftentimes worthwhile and not as difficult as perceived to write software sketches by using real-world programming languages and environments. The goal here is not perfect programming form, but optimal performance, a good sketch and great design.

6.

REFERENCES

[1] ADOBE, http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/ [2] APPLE, http://www.apple.com/ipad Figure 3: A piece titled Feel from David Jhave Johnston's Muds [3] APPLE, http://developer.apple.com/ [4] APPLE, Introduction to The Objective-C Programming Language, http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Coc oa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/Introduction/introObjectiveC.htm l [5] APPLE, iOS 4.2, http://www.apple.com/ios/ [6] ARDUINO TEAM, http://www.arduino.cc/ [7] Buxton, Bill, (2007). Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design, Morgan Kaufmann [8] CYCLING 74, http://cycling74.com/products/maxmspjitter/ [9] Ericsson Computer http://www.erlang.org/ Science Laboratory,

4.

Using the right tools

The aim of this paper is not to affirm that all tools made available to designers are irrelevant. It rather wishes to sensitize designers about the use of appropriate tools for the best practice of Interaction Design. [7] If there is anything I learned from programming it is that there are oftentimes more solutions that one would like. The skill of a good programmer lies in choosing one of these solutions for justified reasons, sticking to the design specification and implementing the solution.

4.1

Tools for sketching in hardware

This paper is focused around using systems to perform computational tasks in a design context and doesnt only focus on the use of software within a desktop operating system. The choice of tools used to program and interface with hardware is equally important. When interfacing with hardware sketching platforms such as Arduino[6] or Phidgets[24], most programming languages achieve optimal performance but some languages should simply be off limits[19]. ActionScript and the Adobe Flash Player for example do not have native serial hardware access for security reasons. This means that any sketch that solely uses Flash is incapable of communicating to devices connected to the computer. Therefore, in order to achieve communication between Phidgets or Arduino and ActionScript, an in-between layer of socket servers is required. This completely detracts from the low-level programming feeling. The idea behind sketching in hardware is after all to achieve the partial result of a design in order to visualize its founding concepts simultaneously and in the real world. One of the reasons why Arduino is so popular is because of its easily extensible C API and how easy it is to put programs onto the hardware. Phidgets on the other hand are programmable with no less than 20 programming languages. They offer flexibility in how the hardware is accessed and make the assumption that designers have done the research as to which tool is appropriate for use in the context of their work. Both Arduino and Phidgets are valid options for hardware sketching because they extend quality tools to the designer with an emphasis on freedom of choice and performance.

[10] Fallman, Daniel, (2003). Design-Oriented Human Computer Interaction, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA [11] Johston, David, (2009). Muds, http://glia.ca/conu/muds_09, accessed 27 February 2011 [12] KHRONOS, OpenCL The open standard for parallel programming of heterogeneous systems, http://www.khronos.org/opencl/ [13] Lewis E. J., Nadeau B., Zananiri E., (2007). What They Speak When They Speak to Me, Gallery Oboro, Montreal [14] Lount, Peter William, (2004). What is Smalltalk?, http://www.smalltalk.org/smalltalk/whatissmalltalk.html [15] LUA, Lua: about, http://www.lua.org/about.html [16] THE MATHWORKS INC, MATLAB The Language of Technical Computing, http://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab/ [17] McCarthy, John, University, USA (1979). History of Lisp, Stanford

[18] MICROSOFT, http://www.microsoft.com/windowsembedded/enus/evaluate/windows-embedded-ce-6.aspx [19] Moussette C. and Dore F., (2010). Sketching in Hardware and Building Interaction Design: Tools, Toolkits and an Attitude for Interaction Designers, Proc. Of Design Research Society 2010, Montreal (Canada) [20] NOKIA, http://qt.nokia.com/products/ [21] OBX LABS, http://www.obxlabs.net/ [22] OBX LABS, Mr. Softie, http://www.mrsoftie.net/ [23] ORACLE, http://www.oracle.com/us/technologies/java/index.html

5.

CONCLUSION

In the spirit of striving towards great design, I suggest that interaction designers who are serious about their software and

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[24] PHIDGETS, http://www.phidgets.com/ [25] R, What Is R?, http://www.r-project.org/about.html [26] SCHEMERS, faq-general http://community.schemewiki.org/?scheme-

[27] Soulie, Juan (2009), A brief http://cplusplus.com/info/description/

description,

[28] W3Schools, http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp

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Playing with Mechanics: Rules & Constraints

Bar Serim
Student at Malm University stra Varvsgatan 11 21119 Malm +46 76 425 37 97

serim.baris@gmail.com ABSTRACT
Defining the players modes of involvement taking shape during the interaction with a game is crucial for the evaluation of games. In fact, defining them can be very decisive for a designer as many elements summarized under the term mechanics are interchangeable with each other. They are also helpful in setting the priorities for prototyping in a design process. This paper includes one example that shows the transformation of a traditional board game by changing the modes of involvement. player but can be experienced, whereas the rules of the game are enforced on the player. Actions like exploring, enforcing and creating are thus useful in defining the involvement of the player. Many elements of game mechanics such as natural constraints and rules can be interchanged.1 A mechanic element can either be constructed as a physical constraint or a rule. Digital tools provide efficient means to interchange different elements of game mechanics, defining the mood of the game. One example is a week-long project that we have worked on at the Interaction Design Master Course at Malm University, in which we have attempted to change the actions of the players by restructuring the mechanics of a board game. Our task, as defined in the project brief, was to reinterpret a traditional board game by using digital capabilities. During the project we have found the opportunity to compare the interaction qualities of the original and the reinterpreted versions of the game, which is based on low fidelity interaction prototyping we have carried out.

Keywords
Game mechanics, involvement, interaction prototyping, game rules, physics, tools, context.

1. I TRODUCTIO
The term mechanics is often used in describing the whole of the necessary atemporal elements in a game [2]. Thus, the term encompasses many different constituents of a game such as the rules, the physical stock of the game, the players, etc. Although it may be sufficient to sum up all those constituents under the term mechanics from a static point of view, this gives little clue on the user experience of a game. This paper attempts to contribute to the idea of how the mechanics are formulated and the interaction quality of a game are interrelated. The mechanics of Baseball include not only the explicit rules of Baseball, but the physical laws that govern the game: gravity, energy, the limits of human mind and body [2]. A distinction between physical laws and the explicit rules certainly addresses different interaction qualities: the physical laws maintaining the natural setting of the game and the explicit rules that the player gets accustomed with in time. For an approach that takes the player interaction as its focus, it is fruitful to deal with mechanics as encounters, defined in action and in specific context rather than givens in a game; parallel to the phenomenological view on social facts as Dourish puts it [1] social facts are emergent properties of interactions, not pregiven or absolute but negotiated, contested and subject to continual processes of interpretation and reinterpretation. Looking back to LeBlancs baseball example from an interaction point of view, one might say that the physical laws like gravity are factual and they dont need to be consciously implemented by the baseball

2. TRA SFORMI G A BOARD GAME 2.1 Risk: A Board Game for the Conquest of the World
Risk is a traditional turn-based board game that requires participation of 2 to 6 players. Each player starts the game with a number of lands on a world map and a secret mission that sets the rule to win the game. At the beginning of each turn, players receive a number of soldiers, based on the number of lands or continents they conquer. The player places the soldiers on the lands she prefers and is now able to attack to an adjacent players land by using her soldiers. The player is able to make as many attacks as she wants. At the last stage of the turn, the player is able to transport a number of soldiers from one of her lands to a neighboring land. A set of soldiers in different colors shows the number of soldiers each player has in a land and the dice provide the random input for the battles when a player attacks another players land. All the actions involve some calculation carried out by the players, such
1

Although not corresponding to the term mechanics, it is also useful to mention Salen and Zimmermans distinction between constituative rules that constitute the formal foundation of the game and the operational rules that the player has to follow. [5]

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as determining the number of soldiers to receive, the conditions to win a battle based on the dice and other rules, which will not be explained here.

tangible elements in the game. Overlooking the player experience, the materials of a game can be seen as mere extensions of the rules [6]. Yet it is worthwhile to ask how the rules are embodied by the physical assets of the game as the set of rules is not the experience of a game [4]. Although the Risk board game as it stands has many tangible elements like soldiers and dice, they are very abstract in the sense that they dont direct the player to do a peculiar action in a specific time. We have modified the game without changing the constituative rules and provided players with tools that carry their own constraints instead. Tangible soldiers have been turned into visual information and three tangible tool objects (for deploying soldiers, attacking and transporting) have been created that manipulate this visual information, by this way turning the rules into natural constraints of the game rather than precepts to be learned. After the transformation of the board game, reliance on the knowledge on rules for the playability is reduced. The players interact with the tangible objects either by moving them on the map. The system responses only to valid actions done by the players, and gives the visual feedback by projecting the information to the players on a common surface. Thus the system

Figure 1. The strategy board game, risk. What we have observed during the conception phase was, learning the basic rules of the game was tiring as it needs continuous accepting of the rules. Even though the rules mean a lot to the experienced players as a crucial part of the game, they dont make much sense to the first-time players. Our attempt was to make the game-play less effortful for new beginners who does not know the explicit rules, for doing this we have restructured the

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Figure 2. Schema showing the action of a player during a turn in chronological order. Rules that were once necessary to know for the game play are now being automatically calculated by a computer.

is able to know whose turn is it, how many soldiers a player can deploy, how to determine who the winning player in a battle is; simply what is possible in the game. The players on the other hand now dont have to know the operations carried out by the computer, yet they are able to discover it by the help of the visual feedback and by the help of other players in the game.

2.2 Interaction Prototyping

The game play has been prototyped with four people, where three are the players (Martina, Avissa and Marcus, Marcus already knew the game) and one person (Bar) acting as a human machine. The only information given to the players was how to user the tools and the goal of the game. All the other calculations and the visual feedback had been carried out by the human machine, who also gives visual feedback to the users, aiding them to explore the rules.

Figure 4. Visual information on the continent Australia, showing how many extra soldiers are gained when a continent is ruled by a player for a full turn. The players have been interviewed after the session, asking their game experience and their attribution of causality to the events occurred during the play. Here are some remarks: Bar: Were you able to discover any kind of underlying rule? Avissa: You can not attack 1 to 1. I still dont know how the dice work. You can be 5 but can loose to 1 soldier. I did not get how the amount of troops is determined. It seemed random. Martina: I did not try to attack with minority. It doesnt make sense but maybe it will work.

Figure 3. One player deploying soldiers by using the deployment tool and the human machine executing the order. Putting the use quality forward proved to be useful in determining to what extend different technology is interchangeable when prototyping the players experiences. On the other hand, rather than being a mere representation of the original product, the prototyping shapes the designers engagement in the process as it also acts as a communication medium [3]. New visualizations and animations (like animating the tools or performing error sound when a player makes an invalid move) for the tangible tools have been invented during the process and the players have been informed verbally when the envisaged behavior was not achieved. Those performances can later turn into design features. One example was when Avissa tried to attack from a land with one soldier, as that is not possible in the game she has been warned with an error sound. Another example was when Martina tried to move her soldiers a second time from a land to another, similarly it was not possible and not any response has been given. During the game-play players were discussing among themselves how much bonus soldiers does a continent grant, a visualization has been made to show this information.

Bar: Even though it was not stated, you only attacked to the neighboring lands, why? Martina: The lines on the map connecting the land pieces kind of imply this. Also the length of the tool only allows to attack neighboring lands. Was this the case?

3. TOOLS & THE GAMES CO TEXT

At this point, making the game-play less effortful needs more elaboration in relation to our case. It might be demanding for new players to keep many rules in mind when playing the game. Interactive elements giving immediate feedback with tangible tools have been instrumental in turning many rules into natural constraints by embedding them into the physical assets of the game.

As Martina mentioned, some functions of the tools make sense or dont in some situations and phases during the game (like attacking with minority: it may be possible but it does not make sense). If one accepts the notion of a set of underlying rules (physics) or the full potential of the tools, it is possible to say that some of those underlying rules might be missed during the gameplay or they might be criticized for their constraints. The game play taking place in a broader context than just making actions by using the tools could be a reason for this. On the other hand, as Taylor [7] has mentioned, it is not a surprise that many gaming communities set up online databases that give account of detailed mechanics of the game such as tech trees, hints, hidden details, which all make it possible to have a better command of the game. Game itself is definitely not the only medium players communicate with each other. For our case, having the players

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around a table with common tangible tools has made it more probable for them to share their knowledge and skills about the game. During some random instances of game-play Marcus explicated the rules to the other players, thereby influencing their actions.

functions of the tangible elements and to serve their fine strategies.

4. ACK OWLEDGME TS
The example mentioned has been carried out by Bar Serim and Vincent Olislagers at Malm University. I would like to thank all of the Interaction Design Masters class, Amanda Bergknut, Tony Olsson and Mattias Nordberg for their useful feedback and support. Martina Uhlig, Avissa Bigdelli, Marcus Ghaly and Svetlana Suvorina deserve special acknowledgement for their very valuable input and patience.

Based on the prototyping session it is also possible to say that changing the players involvement did not only make the players interaction more explorative but it also made them less knowledgeable about the constituative rules of the game. The initial aim of the design was to lower the threshold for the newcomers by reconfiguring the mechanics of the game, by turning rules into digital constraints. This proved to make the game speedier as many calculations were carried out by the computer. It also helped players to focus more on their actions.

5. REFERE CES
[1] Dourish, P. 2004. What we talk about when we talk about context. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing (2004) 8, 21. [2] LeBlanc, M. . 2006. Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics. In The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthropology. K. Salen and E. Zimmerman, Ed. The MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 440. [3] Rudd, J., Stern, K. and Isensee, S. 1996. Low vs. high-fidelity prototyping debate. Interactions (1996) 3, 1. ACM. New York, 80. [4] Salen, K. and Zimmerman, E. 2003. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. The MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 120. [5] Salen, K. and Zimmerman, E. 2003. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. 127-139. [6] Salen, K. and Zimmerman, E. 2006. The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthropology. The MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 9. [7] Taylor, T. L. . 2007. Pushing the Borders: Player Participation and Game Culture. In Structures of Participation in Digital Culture. J. Karaganis, Ed. The Social Science Research Council. New York, 120.

Yet, turning many rules into constraints was not a neutral act to improve the game interaction for newcomers. Even though it lowered the threshold to play the game, it made the learning of the original rules much slower (in the original game the user had to know them to play the game). For example, even at the end of the game two of the players were not able to understand what the winning conditions in a battle are, so their decisions were not based on the rules in the regular game. Thus it is important to acknowledge that, a designer more or less willingly decides on the users possibilities even though the games formal possibilities remain the same.

Up to this point, the three tangible elements of the game have been referred to as tools for playing the game and exploring the underlying rules. The justification of this was perhaps the fact that the prototyping included two players who dont know the game. Considering that the play of the game takes place in a context, the definition of the tools in the game would change. For an experienced player the rules they know can be tools to explore the

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