Tangible user interface

There are several frameworks describing the key characteristics of tangible user interfaces. Brygg Ullmer and Hiroshi Ishii describe six characteristics concerning representation and control: • Physical representations are computationally coupled to underlying digital information. • Physical representations embody mechanisms for interactive control. • Physical representations are perceptually coupled to actively mediated digital representations. • Physical state of tangibles embodies key aspects of the digital state of a system Ullmer, Ishii, and Robert J. K. Jacob further developed a token+constraint framework, in which discrete physical objects (tokens) represent digital information and are manipulated within confining regions (constraints) that map to digital operations. Eva Hornecker and Jacob Buur describe a structured framework with four themes: • Tangible manipulation: material representations with distinct tactile qualities, which are typically physically manipulated. A typical example is haptic direct manipulation: can user grab, feel and move important elements in the interface? • Spatial interaction: tangible interaction is embedded in real space; interaction occurs as movement in this space. An example is full body interaction: can the user make use of their whole body? • Embodied facilitation: the configuration of material objects and space affects how multiple users interact jointly with the tangible user interface. Examples include multiple access points: can all users in the space see what is going on and interact with central elements of the interface? • Expressive representation: expressiveness and legibility of material and digital representations employed by tangible interaction systems. An example is representational significance: do physical and digital representations have the same strength and salience? According to Mi Jeong Kim and Mary Lou Maher, the five basic defining properties of tangible user interfaces are as follows: • Space-multiplex both input and output. • Concurrent access and manipulation of interface components. • Strong specific devices. • Spatially aware computational devices. • Spatial re-configurability of devices. == Comparison with graphical user interfaces ==

A tangible user interface is usually built for one specific target group, because of the low range of possible application areas. Therefore, the design of the interface must be developed together with the target group to ensure a good user experience. In comparison with a TUI, a GUI has a wide range of usages in one interface. Because of that it targets a large group of possible users. . TUI are often designed for domain-specific tasks by third parties, such as collaborative design, education or simulation. Unlike a claim made that TUIs have a "low range of possible application areas," research would lead us to believe that the applicability of a TUI to an application depends on the context, intended task goals, and requirements of the user, rather than on inherent limitations. Designing a TUI typically requires close work with target users in order to ensure usability and effectiveness, especially for specialized or complex tasks . In comparison, GUIs are usually more flexible, and can support a greater diversity of applications in a single interface, which makes them capable of targeting a greater and broader diversity of users . However, TUI's and GUIs are not mutually exclusive and many hybrid systems integrating tangible and graphical elements exist . Interactive tabletops, for instance, combine touch-based GUI widgets with tangible objects, the former multimodal interactions and support for multi-modal interactions as well as collaborative activities . TUIs offer possible advantages in terms of embodied interaction and cooperative interaction . The physical nature of the interface can be used to develop spatial thinking, promote a common understanding within group work, and provide some sensory information that compliments visuals . TUIs have been used to make interfaces more interesting and accessible for various kinds of users, including those inexperienced with conventional digital systems . == Examples ==

A simple example of tangible UI is the computer mouse: Dragging the mouse over a flat surface moves a pointer on the screen accordingly. There is a very clear relationship about the behaviors shown by a system with the movements of a mouse. Other examples include: • Marble Answering Machine by Durrell Bishop (1992). A marble represents a single message left on the answering machine. Dropping a marble into a dish plays back the associated message or calls back the caller. • The Topobo system. The blocks in Topobo are like LEGO blocks which can be snapped together, but can also move by themselves using motorized components. A person can push, pull, and twist these blocks, and the blocks can memorize these movements and replay them. • Implementations which allow the user to sketch a picture on the system's table top with a real tangible pen. Using hand gestures, the user can clone the image and stretch it in the X and Y axes just as one would in a paint program. This system would integrate a video camera with a gesture recognition system. • jive. The implementation of a TUI helped make this product more accessible to elderly users of the product. The 'friend' passes can also be used to activate different interactions with the product. • a projection augmented model. • SandScape: Designing landscape with TUI. This interface lets the user form a landscape out of sand on a table. The sand model represents the terrain, which is projected on the surface. In real-time the model projects the deformations of the sand. == State of the art ==

Interest in tangible user interfaces (TUIs) has grown constantly since the 1990s, and with every year, more tangible systems are showing up. A 2017 white paper outlines the evolution of TUIs for touch table experiences and raises new possibilities for experimentation and development. In 1999, Gary Zalewski patented a system of moveable children's blocks containing sensors and displays for teaching spelling and sentence composition. Tangible Engine is a proprietary authoring application used to build object-recognition interfaces for projected-capacitive touch tables. The Tangible Engine Media Creator allows users with little or no coding experience to quickly create TUI-based experiences. The MIT Tangible Media Group, headed by Hiroshi Ishi is continuously developing and experimenting with TUIs including many tabletop applications. The Urp system and the more advanced Augmented Urban Planning Workbench allow digital simulations of air flow, shadows, reflections, and other data based on the positions and orientations of physical models of buildings, on the table surface. Newer developments go even one step further and incorporate the third dimension by allowing a user to form landscapes with clay (Illuminating Clay) or sand (Sand Scape). Again different simulations allow the analysis of shadows, height maps, slopes and other characteristics of the interactively formable landmasses. InfrActables is a back projection collaborative table that allows interaction by using TUIs that incorporate state recognition. Adding different buttons to the TUIs enables additional functions associated to the TUIs. Newer versions of the technology can even be integrated into LC-displays by using infrared sensors behind the LC matrix. The Tangible Disaster allows the user to analyze disaster measures and simulate different kinds of disasters (fire, flood, tsunami,.) and evacuation scenarios during collaborative planning sessions. Physical objects allow positioning disasters by placing them on the interactive map and additionally tuning parameters (i.e. scale) using dials attached to them. The commercial potential of TUIs has been identified recently. The repeatedly awarded Reactable, an interactive tangible tabletop instrument, is now distributed commercially by Reactable Systems, a spinoff company of the Pompeu Fabra University, where it was developed. With the Reactable users can set up their own instrument interactively, by physically placing different objects (representing oscillators, filters, modulators...) and parametrise them by rotating and using touch-input. Microsoft is distributing its novel Windows-based platform Microsoft Surface (now Microsoft PixelSense) since 2009. Beside multi-touch tracking of fingers, the platform supports the recognition of physical objects by their footprints. Several applications, mainly for the use in commercial space, have been presented. Examples range from designing an own individual graphical layout for a snowboard or skateboard to studying the details of a wine in a restaurant by placing it on the table and navigating through menus via touch input. Interactions such as the collaborative browsing of photographs from a handycam or cell phone that connects seamlessly once placed on the table are also supported. Another notable interactive installation is instant city that combines gaming, music, architecture and collaborative aspects. It allows the user to build three-dimensional structures and set up a city with rectangular building blocks, which simultaneously results in the interactive assembly of musical fragments of different composers. The development of the Reactable and the subsequent release of its tracking technology reacTIVision under the GNU/GPL as well as the open specifications of the TUIO protocol have triggered an enormous amount of developments based on this technology. In the last few years, many amateur and semi-professional projects outside of academia and commerce have been started. Due to open source tracking technologies (reacTIVision The Tangible Factory Planning is a tangible table based on reacTIVision and was on exhibition at the Bauhaus-University in Weimar marking the 90th anniversary of the establishment of Bauhaus. Visitors could browse and explore the biographies, complex relations and social networks between members of the movement. Using principles derived from embodied cognition, cognitive load theory, and embodied design TUIs have been shown to increase learning performance by offering multimodal feedback. However, these benefits for learning require forms of interaction design that leave as much cognitive capacity as possible for learning. ==Physical icon==

A physical icon, or phicon, is the tangible computing equivalent of an icon in a traditional graphical user interface, or GUI. Phicons hold a reference to some digital object and thereby convey meaning. History Physical icons were first used as tangible interfaces in the metaDesk project built in 1997 by Professor Hiroshi Ishii's tangible bits research group at MIT. The metaDesk consisted of a table whose surface showed a rear-projected video image. Placing a phicon on the table triggered sensors that altered the video projection. == See also ==