Can Tangible User Interface Concepts be used for Describing Everyday Object Manipulation?

Overview The main part of this position paper presents our emerging design framework “egocentric interaction” aimed to help structuring the design of support systems for personal everyday activities. The particularity of the proposed model is a) the choice to center the activity modelling around a specific human body rather than a computing device or other artefact, and b) the attempt to cover object manipulation performed by human individuals both in the real world and in the virtual world (i.e. taking place “inside” interactive computing devices). The idea of complementing the egocentric interaction framework with existing concepts from within the area of Tangible User Interfaces is raised, motivated by the need to model everyday object manipulation in more detail. The last section of the paper relates our design approach, focusing on the “what” rather than the “how”, to more technology-driven design approaches.