Tangible Interfaces for Download: Initial Observations from Users' Everyday Environments

摘要

Tangible user interfaces (TUIs) have been promoted and discussed in the HCI community for 15 years. Most reported TUIs are research prototypes, available in laboratories or museums. This paper reports an attempt to understand the impact of TUIs in users' everyday environments through a low-cost, simple setup tangible interface for music that can be freely downloaded from a website. The system requires only a regular computer, a webcam and a printer - the physical parts of the interface can be folded out of ordinary paper. Logging interaction with the interfaces and analyzing content posted by users on the web we observed that the TUIs were accepted as normal: just interfaces to make music rather than esoteric systems.