Authorship & Interaction

4. Select one interactive designed environment and critically analyze how information is generated and disseminated in this instance use examples of practice and theory to help you to achieve this.


Within my research I have come across InFORM, it captivated my attention on how 3D physical interactive media has developed in the last few years. I have taken the question to search further within its design and comparing to other innovative haptic 3D displays such as the Microsoft’s Surface pro. Exploring and describing their features to see how they might have a significant impact on how we interact with the environment in the future. Using theoretical examples of what good interactive design is and expert’s opinions from the interactive field to debate how effective information is generated and disseminated through the mediums used in both designs. I will also highlight their 3 dimensional physical interactive and user interfaces’ attributes and disadvantages debating which of the two generate a greater user experience. Using the debate and the knowledge I have obtained through this research I will conclude by revealing my personal opinion whether the screen will stay dominant in our environment or whether there will be a new way to interact with media in a 3D physical manner.
















http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/11/inform-an-interactive-dynamic-shape-display-that-physically-renders-3d-content/ - InFORM - 2013


InFORM is a dynamic shape display, which was designed by Daniel Leithinger, Sean Follmer, Hiroshi Ishii and is being developed by the Tangible Media Group. InFORM is a UI that is able to create 3 dimensional physical shapes using ‘900 pins, 900 mechanical actuators, a computer, Kinect camera and a projector’ [1]. The InFORM user interface is capable of

transforming shape through digital data transferred through the Kinect’s motion sensor camera. It captures real time images from an overhead position, tracking the environment and any physical movements. The technology within the Kinect allows the interaction to become possible and is key to the InFORM’s design. During that process a projector is used to feed an image over the pins.























http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/11/inform-an-interactive-dynamic-shape-display-that-physically-renders-3d-content/ - InFORM components - 2013.

Using ‘OpenFrameworks and OpenGL’[1] to generate the graphics the projector uses the Kinect’s camera to track in order to identify precisely where to project the information captured. It separates graphic information with the projections, defining and giving significant distinction to the 3D shapes that the pins create. Controlling InFORM can be done in several ways one implementation to its design is the ability to use tokens. Affecting how information is displayed generated. A small red ball is utilized during the video that the Tangible Media Group uploaded on ‘Vimeo’ [2], It shows the user changing scale of shapes, editing and rendering geometry and navigating through paths. The design itself has taken a primary simple approach of the law of prägnanz on its controls they appear natural and user friendly changing the way information is produced across the pin board. For instance when changing the color of a shape the pins sets a path of where you can roll the ball through to select a new color or you can use your hand by just sliding it over the colors available. You can either press the pins down or just let the Kinect track your movements or the pins reacting to the token.
‘Bill Moggridge states that through his practice he noticed that Interaction design was a combination of computer science, product design and communication design with the purpose of creating tools to better society’s connectivity’ [3].

The Kinect allows users to control the pin board through Internet connectivity, which enhances the possibilities it withholds. Being able to connect to InFORM while being in another room or in another country opens the possibilities to the physical controls, and the interaction with the environment making it possible to be omnipresent. InFORM today could be used for personal tutoring; the information could be controlled and displayed by the tutor without the need for him to be present with the student. Allowing the tutor to engage on a personal level with the pin board and the student. Using a screens and two Kinect cameras bringing control to the device also allowing game possibilities increasing the pace of the engagement with the user interface. The projector is pointed to display over all 900 pins, capable of displaying charts, math equations and any type of digital information sourced through the computer. The pins can also be generated in 3D information using a computer that is linked to the board. As the projector displays the data it can be controlled with the Kinect features and physical touch, when interacted with, it generates and relays the tracking information to the computer through the sliders or Kinect camera. The use of color is very prominent within the design. It is used to guide and create new forms and tasks it bridges from plain white pins to interactive spread displayed data.

















http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/11/inform-an-interactive-dynamic-shape-display-that-physically-renders-3d-content/ -InFORM 3D recreation of user through Kinect – 2013.
Adapting to other devices such as mobile phones, tablets like the iPad and other electronic objects. Kinect’s camera in conjunction with the sliders on the pins tracks the devices when they vibrate generating waves informing the user by moving the phone around the pin board as soon as the device seizes to vibrate the last few waves become smaller until they fade. Information generated trough Kinect begins with the activation of the camera and the change of position separated from the pin board. Once the camera is operational facing the user a screen can be placed facing the pin board, which will demonstrate the user’s movements. The information is picked up through the camera’s tracking system using invisible lasers to map the user. It then generates coordinates for the pins to be elevated creating a 3D replication of what the camera is tracking. Simultaneously the projector displays what the Kinect is tracking on the pins spreading realistic multi toned colors and creating a more life like 3D replica visualizing the digital laser mapped information captured using the camera.


‘Bill Moggridge mentions that the goal is to connect people through the products they use’ [3]. As the environment begins to be expanded and perfected with interaction design, the developed user interfaces have become beautifully simple and the information generated and disseminated has become elegantly subtle with a natural flow, where user control is core and seamless. ‘Alan Cooper says that ideally, interfaces wouldn’t exist at all in the mind of the user — they should simply “see” the interface as an extension of the underlying system.’ [4]

InFORM capabilities of generating information with a projector and the combination of the kinect camera compliments its design quality connecting people through their gestures, touch and movements which is the most basic natural human reaction. Engagement with the product is commenced with curiosity; it aids people to adapt to its design. ‘Follmer suggested that thinking that humans would stick with keyboards and mouses as the mainstream input devices for computers was something that we need to move away from" [5] information is released as reaction that causes InFORM’s dynamic to flow keeping the law of Prägnanz within its informational output.

Bearing in mind that the pins generate 3D information they become abstract without the help of the projector where it’s design quality becomes dependent. InFORM sources most of its information from the computer and through the pin board it disseminates information only with the succor of the projector. However its environment absorbing qualities are reflectively agile. ‘“Their behavior can become more collective as those signals become more explicit. The pins are programmed like an organism working together to create form,”’ [6] Blaise’s quote describes InFORM’s information flow effectively it’s ‘reciprocal changes’ [8] keep the user engaged and the variety of interactive actions they will need to familiarize with. The interactive process begins with the user being identified by the Kinect camera and then the user’s observation identifying the menu button on the InFORM’s pin board through physical selection information is projected on to the pins directing the user towards further engagement.


The qualities within the way the information is generated bring ease to the user’s interaction, allowing them to connect to InFORM without being familiar with its controls. The combination of projector and pins create strong representations of information conveying an extremely responsive interface that generates information within seconds. Its shape shifting capabilities allows InFORM to convey whatever message or form the user desires from a media player to a puzzle. However there are disadvantages in its design, the projector cannot display information when the user’s hand is in the way, making it hard to see information that is spread throughout the pin board when controlling them by touch. In another Tangible media project they created holograms over pins called ‘Sublimate: State-Changing Virtual and Physical Rendering to Augment Interaction’ [7] with Shape Displays to generate the graphics they used a stereoscopic screen, half-silvered mirror, vision tracker and tagged shutter glasses. They created a hologram that would not be interrupted by shadows, which brought a consistent, and confortable display, which bettered InFORM’s projections.















http://www.olwal.com -Sublimate hologram of human brain - 2013

In the other hand Microsoft’s Surface Pro’s table brings interaction with the environment in a new form, with its information being generated on a standard TV screen made the design a finished product. However it limited the way information was generated and the way the users interacted with it, Surface Pro captures user’s touch through sensors and small cameras spread out behind the screen. The small cameras identify objects that are placed on to the screen’s surface, allowing the user to source related media to whatever object the screen identifies. Going back to user interfaces and how information is being generated in Surface Pro, the UI brings the environment and user together. ‘“I believe we will look back on 2010 as the year we expanded beyond the mouse and keyboard and started incorporating more natural forms of interaction such as touch, speech, gestures, handwriting, and vision--what computer scientists call the "NUI" or natural user interface”. - Steve Ballmer, CEO Microsoft.’[9]
In comparison with InFORM, Surface Pro is confining users to the screen, removing the analog and keeping a glass tactile along with a digital haptic . The screen today, is a part of everyday life, where people create and source information from. The kinect has offered a alternative manipulation method of the screen, however the screen has limitations, looking towards what the future holds, will information be generated through screen or will digital information have physical form? In response to Microsoft’s video on their vision for the future[10] Bret Victor rants about the screen being a dominant information source in the environment that Microsoft portrays. He says, “ Pictures Under Glass is an interaction paradigm of permanent numbness. It's a Novocaine drip to the wrist. It denies our hands what they do best. And yet, it's the star player in every Vision Of The Future” [11].


















http://www.ctr-crete.gr/microsofts-perceptive-pixel-premise-the-future-of-touch-computing-isnt-stuck-in-your-pocket/
- Microsoft’s Surface Pro interacting with objects.
To Conclude InFORM is a step towards the future, bringing user closer to information. Its UI connects environment and people together, making possible information to be viewed without the user being physically present. InFORM is under development and is a stepping-stone towards Radical Atoms. The Tangible Media Group wrote a journal on interactive information generated through 3D physical data manifestation - ‘Radical Atoms is a vision for the future of human-material interactions, in which all digital information has physical manifestation so that we can interact directly with it.’[12] With that in mind if that made possible, information could be generated interacting with us in a direct physical way like a stop signs actually appearing on to the road or a online portfolio materialising right in front of you so that tactile and haptic information is enhanced allowing us to experience texture and temperature keeping the focus on what good interactive design connecting people to information and to each other through these products. In my opinion the screen will be something from the past, the way information is generated today will be seen in the same way typewriters are looked at today. Answering the question InFORM for what it is today, it bring astounding innovation in the way it generates its information working as an organism allowing the user to feel and touch the design from close and control by far disseminates its information to screen and to 3D form effectively provoking creative minds.






Bibliography

Books
[3] Designing for Interaction: Creating Innovatice Applications and Devices by Dan Saffern Chapter 1, page 2 2009 ‘Back in 1990, Bill Moggridge (Figure 1.1), a principal of the design firm IDEO, realized that for some time he and some of his colleagues had been creating a very different kind of design. It wasn’t product design exactly, but they were definitely designing products. Nor was it communication design, although they used some of that discipline’s tools as well. It wasn’t computer science either, although a lot of it had to do with computers and software. No, this was something different. It drew on all those disciplines, but was something else, and it had to do with connecting people through the products they used. Moggridge called this new practice interaction design.’
[8] Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative By Mark Stephen Meadows Oct 4, 2002 chapter 1.4.3: Four Steps of Interaction http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=29598&seqNum=5

Journals

[1] inFORM: Dynamic Physical Affordances and Constraints through Shape and Object Actuation
Follmer, S., Leithinger, D., Olwal, A., Hogge, A., and Ishii, H.
Proceedings of UIST 2013 (ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology), St Andrews, UK, Oct 8-11, 2013, pp. 417-426.

[7] Sublimate: State-Changing Virtual and Physical Rendering to Augment Interaction with Shape Displays written by Daniel Leithinger Sean Follmer Alex Olwal Samuel Luescher Akimitsu Hogge Jinha Lee Hiroshi Ishii 2013 http://www.olwal.com/projects/research/sublimate/lethinger_sublimate_chi_2013.pdf



Online articles

[12] Radical Atoms: Beyond Tangible Bits, Toward Transformable Materials written by Hiroshi Ishii, Dávid Lakatos, Leonardo Bonanni, and Jean-Baptiste Labrune Interactions magazine volume xix.1 january + February 2012


[9] Article by Donald A. Norman This essay was published in Interactions magazine, volume 17, issue 3.
http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/natural_user_interfa.html
“I believe we will look back on 2010 as the year we expanded beyond the mouse and keyboard and started incorporating more natural forms of interaction such as touch, speech, gestures, handwriting, and vision--what computer scientists call the "NUI" or natural user interface”. - Steve Ballmer, CEO Microsoft.



[5] Ben Grubb Researchers unveil 'shape-changing' technology that could change computer interaction forever November 15, 2013 http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/researchers-unveil-shapechanging-technology-that-could-change-computer-interaction-forever-20131115-2xka8.html

[11] The Brief Rant of the Future of Interactive Design written by Bret Victor/ November 8, 2011
http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/

[4] Article on interaction design by Andrew Maier 2009 website: http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/complete-beginners-guide-to-interaction-design/
‘(Author of About Face 3: the Essentials of Interaction Design). Alan says that ideally, interfaces wouldn’t exist at all in the mind of the user — they should simply “see” the interface as an extension of the underlying system.’


Videos

[6] Blaise Agüera y Arcas , Connecting- trends in UI, Interaction & Experience Design. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lciYKwVLTuk#t=86

[2] inFORM - Interacting With a Dynamic Shape Display by the Tangible Media Group - November 2013
https://vimeo.com/79179138

[10] Productivity Future Vision (2011) by Microsoft Office
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0#t=360