This document discusses trends in interactive system design including new sensing possibilities like gesture recognition and physiological measures, diversifying physical interfaces from mobile to immersive environments, and shifting applications from productivity to everyday experiences. It presents examples of tangible user interfaces and gesture-based interactions. The document also discusses research on mediated touch through tactile displays and vests, finding that a brief mediated touch can increase helpful behavior similarly to a real human touch. The conclusion is that engaging the body in human-computer interaction broadens interaction and creates more natural and engaging experiences.

1. Minding the Body
Opportunities for
Interactive System
Design
Wijnand IJsselsteijn

2. Imagine 10,000 years from now…
What would a team of Martian paleantologists and archeologists
deduce about our species when encountering the remnants of our
information society, i.e., a desktop computer?

3. Homo Desktopus
© Koert van Mensvoort

5. Major trends
• New sensing possibilities: moving from keyboard/mouse
to gesture-controlled interfaces, multitouch surfaces, face
recognition, activity sensing, context sensing, biometrics,
physiological measures
• Diversifying physical interfaces: media form factors
ranging from small, wearable displays (mobile computing),
to large-scale ambient and immersive 3D environments
• Shift in application purpose: From productivity-oriented
workplace technologies where performance is a key
objective, to applications for everyday life, that aim for
user experiences through leisure, play, culture and art
/ Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences

6. Marc Weiser, 1991
“The most profound technologies are those that
disappear. They weave themselves into the
fabric of everyday life until they are
indistinguishable from it.”

7. Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs)
/ Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences 31-8-2012 Page 7

8. Marble answering machine
Durell Bishop, RCA

9. MIT’s IO Brush
Ryokai, Marti and Ishii, MIT

10. Disney’s Touché
/ Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences

11. Gesture-based Interaction
Tom Cruise in Minority Report

12. A magazine is an iPad that does not work
/ Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences

13. Communication at a distance
Seeing…
Hearing…

14. Touch at a distance: Design
explorations
http://www.cutecircuit.com/products/thehugshirt/

15. What technologies are being used?
• Tactile displays

16. Does mediated touch work at all?
• Potential limitation
– Tactile displays do not yet
convey the richness of human
touch
• Can a mediated touch
using simple electro-
mechanical actuators yield
similar effects as a real
human touch?

17. What’s happening here?

18. Midas Touch
• A brief touch on the arm or
shoulder can:
– Increase compliance to a request
– Increase pro-social behavior
(e.g., helping behavior)
• Proven effective in F2F settings:
– Get on a bus for free
– Have someone hold on to your excitable
dog while you go shopping
– Get better tips when working as a
waitress
– Get people to help you if you drop
something (disks, papers, pens, ...)

19. The “dropping of items paradigm”

20. Mediated Touch via tactile vest

21. Mediated Midas Touch
Condition helping
Touch 76.6%
No Touch 50%
(p = 0.03; one-sided Fisher exact test)

22. It seems to work…

23. Conclusion
• Engaging the body in HCI broadens the human-machine
interaction bandwidth
– Creating more natural interactions
– Creating more engaging experiences
• We need a combination of human-oriented and
engineering sciences to help us move forward
• Exciting time to be an engineer, a psychologist, or an
interaction designer!
/ Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences

25. w.a.ijsselsteijn@tue.nl
@Psych_Tech