Abstract
In this combined
tutorial and workshop, we will review and discuss social science theories
relevant to the design of interactive surfaces. The tutorial will cover both the
underlying theories related to small group behaviour and human use of space,
and discuss challenges of and strategies for applying and adapting these social
theories to interaction and interface design for interactive surfaces. Tutorial
concepts will focus on, but not be limited to, social theories about human
communication and coordination, proxemics, personal space, and territoriality.
The workshop component of this event will bring together researchers currently
using, and/or struggling to use social theories in their interactive surface
designs. The workshop will aim to facilitate knowledge exchange on the inherent
challenges of applying social theories to build systems, and to establish a
community of practice to help develop effective strategies for successfully
applying social theories to the design of interactive surfaces.
Introduction
There is an increasing trend in the human-computer interaction (HCI) and interactive tabletop and surfaces (ITS) communities towards the application of social theories describing human and social behaviour into our technology designs. For example, social theories that describe how people utilize different spatial distances to engage in different types of interactions with others, called Proxemic Zones of Personal Space [3], have been appropriated by ITS researchers to create new forms of interactive surface interactions, called proxemic interactions [2], that leverage people’s existing experiences with such distance-based spatial interactions. In this new interaction paradigm, fine-grained tracking of proxemic dimensions (distance, orientation, location, movement and identity) are used to mediate people’s interactions with ubicomp ecologies. These interaction concepts have been applied in a variety of contexts, including interaction with a large screen media player [2], sense-making activities [4], small-group collaboration in a multi-device ecology [5], public advertising [9] and interactive art [8].
Beyond proxemics, there is a multitude of useful social theories that ITS researchers can and should utilize in their system interfaces and interaction designs to better leverage potential users’ existing social and spatial interaction practices in order to improve the effectiveness and usability of their systems. Knowledge and use of well-established communication theories, such as communication grounding [1], ensure that collaborative systems, at the very least, do not interfere with effective group communication, and ideally help to facilitate communication. Proper application of territoriality theories [7] helps designers to develop systems that foster group coordination in shared workspaces [6].
Beyond proxemics, there is a multitude of useful social theories that ITS researchers can and should utilize in their system interfaces and interaction designs to better leverage potential users’ existing social and spatial interaction practices in order to improve the effectiveness and usability of their systems. Knowledge and use of well-established communication theories, such as communication grounding [1], ensure that collaborative systems, at the very least, do not interfere with effective group communication, and ideally help to facilitate communication. Proper application of territoriality theories [7] helps designers to develop systems that foster group coordination in shared workspaces [6].
Objectives
With this combined tutorial and workshop, we seek to provide a forum for discussing the opportunities for and challenges in applying and translating social theories to interaction design. The tutorial component will focus on social theories related, but not limited to, group communication [1], proxemics [3], personal space [6], and territoriality [4]. We are interested in sharing lessons learned, new ideas, and insights about the ways these theories (that were developed in a different context than HCI) to interaction design.
This one-day tutorial & workshop is around four agendas:
This one-day tutorial & workshop is around four agendas:
- A structured overview of seminal social theories.
- A summary of opportunities and challenges of applying theories to interaction design.
- The sharing of lessons learned when translating theories to a different context.
- The collection of next steps and promising future research topics in this domain.
References
- Clark, H. and Brennan, S. Grounding in communication. In L. Resnick, J. Levine and S. Teasley, eds., Perspectives on socially shared cognition. APA, 1991, 127–149.
- Greenberg, S., Marquardt, N., Ballendat, T., Diaz-Marino, R., and Wang, M. Proxemic interactions: the new ubicomp? interactions 18, 1 (2011), 42–50.
- Hall, E.T. The Hidden Dimension. Anchor, Garden City, N.Y, 1990.
- Jakobsen, M.R., Sahlemariam Haile, Y., Knudsen, S., and Hornbæk, K. Information Visualization and Proxemics: Design Opportunities and Empirical Findings. IEEE Trans. Visual. Comput. Graphics 19, 12 (2013), 2386–2395.
- Marquardt, N., Hinckley, K., and Greenberg, S. Cross-device Interaction via Micro-mobility and F-formations. Proc. UIST ’12, ACM (2012), 13–22.
- Scott, S.D., Carpendale, M.S.T., and Habelski, S. Storage Bins: Mobile Storage for Collaborative Tabletop Displays. IEEE Comput. Graph. Appl. 25, 4 (2005), 58–65.
- Scott, S.D. and Carpendale, S. Theory of Tabletop Territoriality. In C. Müller-Tomfelde, ed., Tabletops - Horizontal Interactive Displays. Springer London, 2010, 357–385.
- Vogel, D. Siftor website. 2013. http://www.nonsequitoria.com/v.php?s=art&f=siftor.
- Wang, M., Boring, S., and Greenberg, S. Proxemic Peddler: A Public Advertising Display That Captures and Preserves the Attention of a Passerby. Proceedings of PerDis ’12, ACM (2012), 3:1–3:6.