Interaction Design
Tangible User Interfaces
Vicky Teinaki
16 April 2008
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Overview
• Background
• About Interaction Design
• Events + Some Key People
• Process
• Tangible User Interfaces (TUI)
• Resources
• Exercise: Card Sorting/Personas
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Background
• Master of Design (in progress) -
based around tactility and mobile
phones
• Looking at how to move from/
combine product and interaction
design
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

About Interaction Design
“Interaction design (IxD) is the branch of user
experience design that illuminates the
relationship between people and the interactive
products they use.
While interaction design has a firm foundation in
the theory, practice, and methodology of
traditional user interface design, its focus is on
defining the complex dialogues that occur
between people and interactive devices of many
types—from computers to mobile
communications devices to appliances.”
http://www.ixda.org/about_interaction.php
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

About Interaction Design
• New field - ranges from information
architecture (IA) to usability, HCI,
new media etc....
• Word coined by Bill Moggeridge and
Bill Verplank in the 1980s
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

About Interaction Design
Started with 1968 NLS ‘Mother of All
Demos’?
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

About Interaction Design
Apple has been a major player....
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

About Interaction Design
http://www.brightcove.tv/search.jsp?query=ixda
First IxDA conference March 2008 in
Savannah, Texas
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Some Key People
• Bill Moggridge (UxD)
• Alan Cooper (Personas)
• Brenda Laurel (Theatre/Gender)
• John Maeda (Simplicity)
• Will Wright (Narrative)
• Anthony Dunne (Design Futures)
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Bill Moggridge
Designed the GRID Laptop
Founded IDEO, championing UxD
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Alan Cooper
Known as “the father of Visual Basic”
Created personas
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Brenda Laurel
PhD thesis “Computers as Theatre”
Purple Moon - computer games for girls
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

John Maeda
Computer art - emphasis on simplicity
Involved in developing Processing
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Will Wright
Created ‘The Sims’
Metaphor of a dollhouse
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby
Exploring technology and subversion
‘Post-optimal’, ‘complicated pleasures’
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Process
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Process
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Process
• Competitor Analysis/Task Analysis
• Creating Personas/Scenarios
• Card Sorts (Open/Closed)
• Wireframes
• Lo-fi/Hi-fi Prototypes
[Shift work]
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Tangible User Interfaces
• The next step on from Graphical
User Interfaces (GUI)
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Tangible User Interfaces
Igoe, T. & O’Sullivan, D. (2004)
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Tangible User Interfaces
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Examples
• RCA work
• MIT Wearable Computing etc.
• IDEO Kiss Communicator
• Marcel Wander’s Blo Lamp
• iPhone (?)
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

RCA Designing Interactions
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

MIT Tangible Bits
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Blo Lamp
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

IDEO Kiss Communicator
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

IPhone - Multitouch etc.
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008

Resources
• MIT Media Lab/RCA Design Interactions
• ‘Designing Interactions’ Bill Moggridge
• ‘The Inmates are Running the Asylum’ Alan Cooper
• Shift www.shift.co.nz
• United Visual Artists www.uva.co.uk
• Interaction Designer’s Association www.ixda.org
• Usability Practitioners’ Association NZ www.upa.org.nz
Vicky Teinaki BProdDes Human Factors Presentation 16 April 2008