A Design Studio Course for Gesture Aware Design of Tangible Interaction

Tangible computing incorporates gesture, grasping, and the use of physical objects as integral parts of interaction design. This paper describes a theory-driven design studio course in which students were asked to develop a new tangible application grounded in the psychology of gesture and thought and informed by protocol studies and critiques of the role of gesture in existing tangible applications. The following tangible computing devices and platforms were included in the studio: the Sifteo Siftables, the Samsung Pixelsense multi-touch table, multi-touch tablets and displays, the Orbotix Sphero, the Microsoft Kinect, and the Leap Motion. The students designed new applications for the Siftables and the Samsung Pixelsense tabletop computers. From the students’ studies and designs, we have developed a framework for studying and designing gesture in tangible computing and a set of design principles for effective use of gesture in interaction design. Author