Phygital interaction is a form of tangible interaction where digital and physical contents are combined in such a way that the locus of multimedia information is detached from the physical ...material(s) manipulated by the user. The use of phygital interaction is supported by several theoretical approaches that emphasize the development of cognitive skills dependent upon embodied interactions with the physical environment. Several studies demonstrate the potential of using phygital technologies for supporting people with intellectual disabilities (ID) in the development of cognitive, sensorimotor, social and behavioral skills. Our research aims at exploring the potential of phygital interaction for (young) adults with ID in a real setting, using a research platform called Reflex as a case study. For this purpose, we ran an empirical study involving 17 participants with ID and 8 specialists, and compared Reflex with approaches making use of only digital contents or paper-based materials. Our findings highlighted the potentials of phygital approaches to perform interventions with people with ID, enhancing their performances with an appreciated interaction method. In addition, the post-study interviews with specialists favoured the adoption of phygital technologies in a social care context.
Feeling the Temperature of the Room Haliburton, Luke; Schött, Svenja Yvonne; Hirsch, Linda ...
Proceedings of ACM on interactive, mobile, wearable and ubiquitous technologies,
03/2023, Letnik:
7, Številka:
1
Journal Article
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Thermal signals have been explored in HCI for emotion-elicitation and enhancing two-person communication, showing that temperature invokes social and emotional signals in individuals. Yet, extending ...these findings to group communication is missing. We investigated how thermal signals can be used to communicate group affective states in a hybrid meeting scenario to help people feel connected over a distance. We conducted a lab study (N=20 participants) and explored wrist-worn thermal feedback to communicate audience emotions. Our results show that thermal feedback is an effective method of conveying audience engagement without increasing workload and can help a presenter feel more in tune with the audience. We outline design implications for real-world wearable social thermal feedback systems for both virtual and in-person communication that support group affect communication and social connectedness. Thermal feedback has the potential to connect people across distances and facilitate more effective and dynamic communication in multiple contexts.
In the present study we present a mixed reality learning environment that aims to become a creative, joyful and efficient interdisciplinary canvas for learning about history and geography and for ...concurrently fostering computational thinking. The environment makes use of embodied affordances and educational robotics and consists of two parts: an augmented 3D-tangible model of southern Europe with finger-based interaction and a second floor-based augmented robotics track de-picting European landmarks, where students are asked to perform tasks with Mindstorms EV3 robots. The game scenario describes a treasure hunt around Eu-rope and students swap between finger-based and robotics-based interactive sur-faces in two pairs. For the evaluation of our intervention, six groups of four stu-dents played with the environment for approximately 45 minutes each. Data col-lection was performed through pre- and post-knowledge test, attitude question-naire and a semi-formal group interview. Students’ answers showed that the mixed reality environment improved their engagement and motivation and en-hanced their orientation around Europe’s geophysical features. The robotics as-pect consolidated further their computational thinking skills while being highly exciting. The proposed approach was closer to the student’s expectations and in-teractive experiences, successfully exploited embodied learning opportunities and gamified the learning process.
Exploring and manipulating complex virtual objects is challenging due to limitations of conventional controllers and free-hand interaction techniques. We present the TanGi toolkit which enables ...novices to rapidly build physical proxy objects using Composable Shape Primitives. TanGi also provides Manipulators allowing users to build objects including movable parts, making them suitable for rich object exploration and manipulation in VR. With a set of different use cases and applications we show the capabilities of the TanGi toolkit and evaluate its use. In a study with 16 participants, we demonstrate that novices can quickly build physical proxy objects using the Composable Shape Primitives and explore how different levels of object embodiment affect virtual object exploration. In a second study with 12 participants we evaluate TanGi's Manipulators and investigate the effectiveness of embodied interaction. Findings from this study show that TanGi's proxies outperform traditional controllers and were generally favored by participants.
Technologies for self-care can drive participatory health and promote independence of older adults. One self-care activity is regularly measuring and registering personal health indicators ...(self-reporting). Older adults may benefit from this practice, as they are more likely to have chronic health issues and have specific self-monitoring needs. However, self-reporting technologies are usually not designed specifically for them. Pain is usually measured using patient reports compiled during medical appointments, although this process may be affected by memory bias and under reporting of fluctuating pain. To address these issues, we introduced a simple tangible interface to self-report pain levels and conducted a three-hour evaluation with 24 older adults. The goal of this study was to identify whether specific activities, activity levels or pain levels trigger older adults to self-report their pain level, besides to understand how older adults would use such a device. Within the limited time frame of the experiment, the majority of our participants chose to report pain when they felt it most, not reporting lower levels of pain. No evidence was found to suggest a relationship between the reporting of pain and the activity (or activity level). Several design insights intended to improve the design of technologies are provided.
We present Tangible Landscape—a technology for rapidly and intuitively designing landscapes informed by geospatial modeling, analysis, and simulation. It is a tangible interface powered by a ...geographic information system that gives three-dimensional spatial data an interactive, physical form so that users can naturally sense and shape it. Tangible Landscape couples a physical and a digital model of a landscape through a real-time cycle of physical manipulation, three-dimensional scanning, spatial computation, and projected feedback. Natural three-dimensional sketching and real-time analytical feedback should aid landscape architects in the design of high performance landscapes that account for physical and ecological processes. We conducted a series of studies to assess the effectiveness of tangible modeling for landscape architects. Landscape architecture students, academics, and professionals were given a series of fundamental landscape design tasks—topographic modeling, cut-and-fill analysis, and water flow modeling. We assessed their performance using qualitative and quantitative methods including interviews, raster statistics, morphometric analyses, and geospatial simulation. With tangible modeling, participants built more accurate models that better represented morphological features than they did with either digital or analog hand modeling. When tangibly modeling, they worked in a rapid, iterative process informed by real-time geospatial analytics and simulations. With the aid of real-time simulations, they were able to quickly understand and then manipulate how complex topography controls the flow of water.
This paper presents and discusses a case-study where a video-game is the means through which the user is induced to learn to use a complex and not-intuitive control interface such as the keyboard of ...a piano. The interaction paradigm is based on the idea, common to the Tangible Interfaces, to employ everyday objects, or anyway not designed for video games, as control user interface. In this research, the case study is the video game called
Musa
, in which players are led into an imaginary world where music is magic and every action is carried out through it. Combined with an educational path, this is thought to make players able to learn and, in a successive moment, to abstract this knowledge from the game, just by playing.
Musa
was evaluated in an experimental setup with 51 kids between 6 and 11 years old. Results show that subjects are able to improve their knowledge of the piano keyboard after two sessions of game and no significant differences were found between children with pre-acquired knowledge of the keyboard and the others.
The significant role of physical modeling processes in the initial architectural design stage, in addition to the widespread adoption of computer-aided design (CAD) software for developing ...alternatives, emphasizes the necessity of platforms capable of generating feedbacks between physical and digital models. Previous research utilized complex additional hardware devices to achieve this purpose. However, the proposed platform, depending on the minimum accessible equipment, is applicable for general use. In this method, following the workspace configuration, the user must mark each cube with a central red point. After the arrangement of each floor, pressing the button embedded in the code results in capturing an image whose visible red spots would be identified by the Firefly plugin. Based on the points’ relative location, the digital model is generated. The validity of the platform has been demonstrated, and could directly serve architects with no prior knowledge of programming.
Nowadays Personal Informatics (PI) devices are used for sensing and saving personal data, everywhere and at any time, helping people improve their lives by highlighting areas of good and bad ...performances and providing a general awareness of different levels of conduct. However, not all these data are suitable to be automatically collected. This is especially true for emotions and mood. Moreover, users without experience in self-tracking may have a misperception of PI applications’ limits and potentialities. We believe that current PI tools are not designed with enough understanding of such users’ needs, desires, and problems they may encounter in their everyday lives. We designed and prototype the Mood TUI (Tangible User Interface), a PI tool that supports the self-reporting of mood data using a tangible interface. The platform is able to gather six different mood states and it was tested through several participatory design sessions in a secondary/high school. The solution proposed allows gathering mood values in an amusing, simple, and appealing way. Users appreciated the prototypes, suggesting several possible improvements as well as ideas on how to use the prototype in similar or totally different contexts, and giving us hints for future research.
Storytelling is widely used to project cultural elements and engage people emotionally. Digital storytelling enhances the process by integrating images, music, narrative, and voice along with ...traditional storytelling methods. Newer visualization technologies such as Augmented Reality allow more vivid representations and further influence the way museums present their narratives. Cultural institutions aim towards integrating such technologies in order to provide a more engaging experience, which is also tailored to the user by exploiting personalization and context-awareness. This paper presents CHATS, a system for personalized digital storytelling in cultural heritage sites. Storytelling is based on a tangible interface, which adds a gamification aspect and improves interactivity for people with visual impairment. Technologies of AR and Smart Glasses are used to enhance visitors’ experience. To test CHATS, a case study was implemented and evaluated.
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