3.3.1 Conception
In this project, we aimed at experimenting on how users can manipulate digital information in a natural way with the aid of metaphor and metaphorical mediated objects. A conceptual sketch of the physical installation of the work investigating on this issue is shown in Figure 3-4. This work contains two interactive artifacts: the InfoRiver Table and the InfoCapsule. We envisioned the world layered with a fluid interface in a river-like form with floating digital information (including text, images, and sound data), and users living in such a world can grasp any digital information encountered, or can share information onto it. The InfoRiver Table is the proof-of-concept idea, as an
Fig 3-4: Physical installation of the InfoRiver.
example of an everyday artifact with a fluid interface. And the InfoCapsule, in such a context, is a personal container that users carry around the environment to grasp, store, share, and manipulate digital information over the InfoRiver. By combining the InfoRiver Table and the InfoCapsule, this project tries to argue that some simple tasks can be naturally accomplished with the appropriate involvement and metaphorical design of mediated objects.
3.3.2 Interaction Design
We augmented digital projections of information and dynamic river flow images over a conventional table as an experimental prototype to test the InfoRiver concept (Fig 3-4). A capsule-like artifact was selected and designed to be a manipulative object which could be separated into two pieces, top and bottom, to interact with the InfoRiver Table (Fig 3-5). Metaphorically, the capsule has been envisioned as a magical container which contains various magical stuffs, as we can see from many comic books such as in “Dragon Ball”11.
To make mapping comprehensible to the user, we illuminated metaphorical visual elements such as “harbor” and “riverside” areas along the edges of a table surface.
The “harbor” is the area for exporting and importing digital information, and the
“riverside” is envisioned as the area for viewing the full content of the grasped digital information. Dragging digital information onto the geographical elements will cause the corresponding trigger. Modes for user interacting with InfoRiver Table via InfoCapsule are summarized in Table 3-2.
Table 3-2: Interaction Techniques of InfoCapsule with InfoRiver
Action with InfoCapsule Outcome
Put the top piece of InfoCapsule on the “harbor” The digital information previously contained in the InfoCapsule floats out into the InfoRiver Put the bottom piece of InfoCapsule with concave
face downward over the InfoRiver to grasp and move digital information
The digital information was dragged and moves with the InfoCapsule
Drag any digital information to the “riverside”, with concave face downward Bottom piece
The digital information is enlarged and the full content is shown
Use the concave face downward bottom piece to drag any digital information to the “harbor”
The digital information was saved into the InfoCapsule
11 Dragon Ball is a Janpanese manga series by Akira Toriyama.
Fig 3-5: The user grasping information over the InfoRiver Table with the top piece of the InfoCapsule.
3.3.3 Implementation
The system architecture of the InfoRiver Table is shown in Figure 3-5. The table artifact was embedded with an RFID reader to detect and retrieve personal stored digital information. The digital information were stored and managed in a database server. A webcam is also embedded into the table artifact to track the position of the LED light. When the user hovers the bottom piece of the InfoCapsule over the table surface, the webcam tracks the LED light to know the moving location of the bottom piece of InfoCapsule. After acquiring the sensing data from the user’s manipulations of the InfoCapsule, the system analyzes and decides on the output strategy. The triggered ambient projection and position tracking components form an ambient feedback to the user.
Fig 3-6: The system architecture of the InfoRiver.
The InfoCapsule is composed of an LED, a mercury switch and a mercury battery, a pressure switch and a RFID tag (Fig 3-7). With the proper mechanical design, the LED can be switched on/off with the embodied action when coupled with user behavior, and thus interaction states of the InfoCapsule could be identifiable to the system simply via the LED light tracking.
3.3.4 Findings
In the InfoRiver Table and InfoCapsule design experiment we have found that mediated objects could expand the user’s interactive modalities by augmenting the object with different states and usages. By exploiting the unique form and interface, the mediated object could be more tailored to the user’s style and can be provided with higher personalized support. Novel manipulative techniques which were not in the original usage of the mediated object make the user capable of doing things which were not intended to be accomplished with the same objects. With little training, such manipulative techniques could also be intuitive to users.
In the InfoRiver project, we used “river” and things relevant to river as metaphors, like the riverside, harbor, and so on. This suggests that a comprehensible mapping between a user action and the mediated object, as well as the things being triggered, is required. Also, The InfoCapsule represents not only a trigger object, but an interface to manipulate digital information over InfoRiver Table. This suggests that the object used to trigger the interaction could be directly used as the controller interface for the interaction.
Fig 3-7: The composition of an InfoCapsule.