This paper explores the field of virtual reality and how immersion and presences can be increased when it comes to navigation and interaction with Virtual Environments. The availability of VR technology has sparked a trend, especially in game development. Old ways of designing for interactive environments have tobe revised. This is done by exploring the massive body of work done on VR, exploring its underlying concepts, using tested design techniques and ways of evaluating interaction for VR. A design suggestion in the form of utilizing a tablet device as the main input device is derived. By using the knowledge gained from reviewing the research on VR conclusions are drawn on how not just design for a touch device, but when designing for many types of input devices

In 2018 a new contraceptive method in the form of a programmable microchip implant will be made available to women. This research attempts to unpack the interaction design implications of the marriage between contraceptive methods and digital technology that the contraceptive microchip represents. The contraceptive microchip comes with a remote control component that is handed to the user so that they can de-activate and re-activate their own fertility. This research uses a range of methods including performance-based speculative design in order to unpack the interaction design implications of the contraceptive microchip. The first major contribution of this research is the compilation of areas of concern for potential adopters of the contraceptive microchip relating to the implantation of digital technology. The second major contribution is the exploration into how the remote control component of the contraceptive microchip could mediate sexual relationships.

Mathematics instruction and discourse typically involve two modes of communication: speech and graphical presentation. For the communication to remain situated, dynamic synchrony must be maintained between the speech and dynamic focus in the graphics. Sighted students use vision for two purposes: access to graphical material and awareness of embodied behavior. This embodiment awareness keeps communication situated with visual material and speech. Our goal is to assist students who are blind or visually impaired (SBVI) in the access to such instruction/communication. We employ the typical approach of sensory replacement for the missing visual sense. Haptic fingertip reading can replace visual material. We want to make the SBVI aware of the deictic gestures performed by the teacher over the graphic in conjunction with speech. We employ a haptic glove interface to facilitate this embodiment awareness. In this research, we address issues from the conception through the design, implementation, evaluation to the effective and successful use of our Haptic Deictic System (HDS) in inclusive classrooms. / Ph. D.

This dissertation investigates aesthetics of engagement in -interaction. Aesthetic refers to the aesthetic experience, based on a phenomenological and pragmatist understanding: dynamic and personal, appealing mutually to - and formed inseparably by - our bodily, emotional, as well as intellectual faculties. Engagement signifies this experience as forming a deeply involved relationship between people and an artefact in interaction. The theoretical background upon which this work is based, asserts that we perceive the world in terms of how we can act in it. Action, through the body, is how we make sense of the world around us. To be congruent with these foundations and the topic at hand means that the research program was investigated through a constructive design research process. The research program anchors and outlines the goal of this investigation: to contribute shareable knowledge of how to design for aesthetic engagement in interaction by leveraging a first-person -perspective. The findings of this research form two contributions to the overlapping fields of Human-Computer Interaction and (Interaction) Design Research. The main contribution is methodological and is concerned with generating knowledge through design. The methodological structure of this dissertation builds on a programmatic approach that centres on the first-person perspective of the designer, who learns from experience by reflecting on design action. Such an approach is fundamental to the design tradition, but its dependency on subjectivity is also a source of epistemological conflict since design, as mode of inquiry, matures and comes in contact with more established disciplines that have their own academic traditions. For design research, to develop its own intellectual culture, alternative and bidirectional relationships between theory and practice need to be further shaped, articulated, and debated in the field. This dissertation contributes to this discussion around designerly ways of knowing by exposing how skillful coping and intuition, through mechanisms of reflection-on-action, generate a multitude of perspectives on a complex design space. These perspectives reveal parts of the complexity of designing for aesthetic engagement, while leaving it intact. Exposing and consolidating the first-person (design) knowledge embedded in these perspectives allows this knowledge to be articulated as a shareable academic knowledge contribution. This shareable knowledge forms the second contribution of this dissertation. Reflections on the process and results of eight constructive design research projects describe a design space around aesthetic engagement. Individual reflections are consolidated into themes that describe how a design may elicit aesthetic engagement in interaction. These themes are experiential qualities: conceptual values that can be leveraged for a design to appeal to both mind and body in ways that are rich, open-ended and ambiguous. The findings propose strategies for interactions with digital technologies to open up the complexity of relations in the world between artefacts and people. Designing for aesthetics of engagement proposes ways to respect people’ skills in making sense of the complexity of the lived world. In respecting the uniqueness of their body and the subjectivity of their experiences, to design for aesthetic engagement is to support the expression of personal points of view in interaction. This points to ways in which designers can open up interactions with digital technologies to be more beautiful, respectful, and liveable, as it touches what makes us human: our personal being in the world.

The research community around gesture-based interaction has so far not paid attention to the possibility of replacing the keyboard with natural gestures for writing purposes. Additionally, insight into the actual user experience of such an interaction style is only insufficiently provided. This work presents a novel approach for text input that is based on a manual alphabet, MATImyo. The hand alphabet was developed in a user-centered design process involving potential users in pre-studies, design process and evaluation procedure. In a Wizard-of-Oz style experiment with accompanying interviews, the alphabet’s quality as input language for composing electronic texts was evaluated and the user experience of such an interaction style assessed. MATImyo was found to be very suitable as gestural input language with a positive user experience. The whole process of designing MATImyo and evaluating its suitability and user experience was based on the principles of Embodied Interaction, which was chosen as theoretical framework. This work contributes to understanding the bigger picture of the user experience of gesture-based interaction and presents a novel, more natural text input method.

The area of the research comprises the field of virtualization as specified to the field of three-dimensional user interfaces (3D UIs). It is an approach of applying the field of motion-sensing technology to potential areas of apparel value chains focusing on design. The background of this thesis is the industry’s established 3D design and development process and new digital tools that enable embodied interaction. So far companies are still working with a limited 3D design approach, which requires several non-value-adding activities, e.g. technical sketching and pattern creation, before a product can be virtually simulated and evaluated. As the current fashion industry’s human-computer interaction (HCI) applications have non-embodied interaction technologies, which deny natural hand movements, it was evaluated, if motion-sensing technology can enable the feeling of natural handcrafting. The purpose of the project was to investigate the designer’s attitude towards motion-sensing technology as a design tool and the potential of embodied HCI in design and development processes of apparel value chains. Enabling the designer the feeling of handcrafting in a 3D world opens a new area of research within the use of 3D fashion design tools. Moreover the thesis expected to prove the desire towards embodied interaction during the apparel design and development processes and the designer’s openness to try out new things. To fulfill the purpose, the motion-sensing technology tool Leap Motion was used as a practical device, which enables embodied interaction in design applications. A team of various designers was used to conduct a practical experiment, combined with interviews and observations. The experiment has been analysed on the designer’s attitude towards the use of a motion-sensing technology tool within the design field and possible implications on the design and development phases of apparel value chains. The results show, that the designers supported embodied interaction and experienced the use of motion-sensing technology as an enhancing and powerful tool. However, it has become clear that the designers experienced the usage of free-handed motion-sensing technology as not natural or intuitive and rather prefer tangible tools. Presupposing a crucial improvement of the technology, different ways of substituting current design activities like enabling the draping process on a virtual basis could enhance the value chain regarding speed, flexibility and waste. This would enable earlier entry into the evaluation stage of virtual simulated prototypes while directly starting the design and development process in 3D and reducing several iterations of non-value adding activities.

Technical advancements allow for increasingly sophisticated methods of self-tracking. Despite this, the ways in which we interact with our numerical representations seem not to have progressed equally, making it challenging to use the data in meaningful ways. This prevents us from making the most of self-tracking in order to facilitate a healthier lifestyle and self-improvement. In this study, we show how Dourish’s Embodied Interaction can motivate acting based on self-tracked data, with the example of walking. We conducted evaluations with experts and users of a software prototype that is built on the notion of embodiment. Based on the results, we draw a number of conclusions about the usefulness of Embodied Interaction in this area: That digital applications can support physical activity through providing context, motivation and feedback; that self-tracking applications should focus on goals rather than data; that motivation might be increased by placing the users efforts in a context that transcends them as individuals; and that Embodied Interaction offers a rich field of possibilities which are yet to be discovered.

As technology progresses, we become surrounded with an ever increasing number of devices. Information can now be persistently represented beyond a single screen and a single session. In the educational context, we see a rapid adoption of the panoply of devices, but often without any careful thought. Devices in isolation are unlikely to enable effective learning. This research explores how devices function in technological display and device ecologies or ecosystems to support human thinking, learning and sensemaking. Based on the theories of Vygotsky's sign mediation triangle, we contribute a method that may allow one to evaluate how technology configurations support (or hinder) students' thinking. Our method proposes the concept of objectification as a way to identify the potential or opportunity for learning in technology ecologies. The significance of such an evaluation methodology is considerable, given the nascent field of sensemaking and the lack of consensus on evaluation in such contexts: our research advances a principled approach by which device ecologies can be examined for their potential to provide 'learning experiences', and enables one to articulate affordances for the design of technological spatial environments that can help to support higher thought. Our contribution thus is in terms of methodology, theory, evaluation and the design of technology ecologies. / Master of Science

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / We use gestures frequently in daily life—to interact with people, pets, or objects. But interacting with computers using mid-air gestures continues to challenge the design of touchless systems. Traditional approaches to touchless interaction focus on exploring gesture inputs and evaluating user interfaces. I shift the focus from gesture elicitation and interface evaluation to touchless interaction mechanics. I argue for a novel approach to generate design guidelines for touchless systems: to use fundamental interaction principles, instead of a reactive adaptation to the sensing technology. In five sets of experiments, I explore visual and pseudo-haptic feedback, motor intuitiveness, handedness, and perceptual Gestalt effects. Particularly, I study the interaction mechanics in touchless target selection. To that end, I introduce two novel interaction techniques: touchless circular menus that allow command selection using directional strokes and interface topographies that use pseudo-haptic feedback to guide steering–targeting tasks. Results illuminate different facets of touchless interaction mechanics. For example, motor-intuitive touchless interactions explain how our sensorimotor abilities inform touchless interface affordances: we often make a holistic oblique gesture instead of several orthogonal hand gestures while reaching toward a distant display. Following the Gestalt theory of visual perception, we found similarity between user interface (UI) components decreased user accuracy while good continuity made users faster. Other findings include hemispheric asymmetry affecting transfer of training between dominant and nondominant hands and pseudo-haptic feedback improving touchless accuracy. The results of this dissertation contribute design guidelines for future touchless systems. Practical applications of this work include the use of touchless interaction techniques in various domains, such as entertainment, consumer appliances, surgery, patient-centric health settings, smart cities, interactive visualization, and collaboration.

This project aims to explore how interactive tangible playthings can be designed to enhance the roleplaying aspect of Dungeons & Dragons. Further, the project juxtaposed D&D and interaction design as practices to examine if D&D can contribute to interaction design. The project adopted research through design methodology and applied different methods, emphasizing playful and movement-based approaches. A handful of tangible electronic prototypes were created using Arduino Nano BLE Sense, gesture recognition combined with a NeoPixel Circle, a Humidifier, and a Vibration motor combined with 3D-printed objects. The prototypes were tested during a D&D playing session to evaluate their impact on the roleplaying experience. The result of the project suggests that interactive tangible artifacts enhance the experiential, expressive, and sensory qualities of roleplaying in D&D by adding interactivity and tangibility. Furthermore, the results suggest that the playthings increase the player's connection to their character. Finally, the project's result suggests that interaction design can learn from D&D's playful and creative nature by adopting the Magic Circle concept to interaction design methodology.