This thesis is concerned with temporal factors from the perspective of the interactive designer/interface designer and usability as a construct for guiding design activity. The research reported herein examines the many factors which emerge when considering the name of interaction at the user interface. Temporal Aspects of Usability (TAU) is presented as a multivariate construct. It is neither a property that exists 'in the head alone' not is it an aspect of the system but rather an emergent property arising from task based interactions. From a theoretical perspective, it is argued that the inclusion of temporal considerations to the task model more fully specifies 'Usability' as a design construct. A model of TAU is evolved and validated utilizing situated interviews with designers. This resulted in an Enhanced model of TAU. A method for developing temporally informed task models, KAT-LITTER (Leveraging Interactions Through Effective Responses), provides temporal design heuristics as the confluence of, KAT (Knowledge Analysis of Task) a task analysis method, and the enhanced TAU model. As a method, KAT-LITTER is device independent, data centered, domain specific and necessarily independent of existing implementations. A process evaluation of KAT-LITTER showed that it influenced the design process in two significant ways: firstly, designers using KAT-LITTER spent more time reasoning about temporal issues than designers using KAT alone, and secondly these same designers considered a broader spectrum of temporal issues. The development of TAU, its accompanying method, KAT-LITTER, complete with a notational system for analysis represent a significant step forward.

Designing for user experience is central to good web design, particularly in e-commerce settings. However, the relevant dimensions and processes of designing for user experience have been variously defined. This project develops an approach to web design that defines the key dimensions of user experience, including interactivity, participation, and flow, and web site design of the user experience. The idea of Interactive User Experience Design is advanced as a model for designing from the perspective of user experience. The project reviews relevant dimensions of user experience, proposes a model integrating key design dimensions of this experience, surveys design literate university students on effective online experiences, and develops a prototype for a hypothetical commercial web site that incorporates elements of co-creation and identity play. This practice-based project contributes a new proposal for web-based design and new knowledge in the form of an approach to user experience design.

Innovative improvements in the area of Human-Computer Interaction and User Interfaces have en-abled intuitive and effective applications for a variety of problems. On the other hand, there has also been the realization that several real-world optimization problems still cannot be totally auto-mated. Very often, user interaction is necessary for refining the optimization problem, managing the computational resources available, or validating or adjusting a computer-generated solution. This thesis investigates how humans can help optimization methods to solve such difficult prob-lems. It presents an interactive framework where users play a dynamic and important role by pro-viding hints. Hints are actions that help to insert domain knowledge, to escape from local minima, to reduce the space of solutions to be explored, or to avoid ambiguity when there is more than one optimal solution. Examples of user hints are adjustments of constraints and of an objective function, focusing automatic methods on a subproblem of higher importance, and manual changes of an ex-isting solution. User hints are given in an intuitive way through a graphical interface. Visualization tools are also included in order to inform about the state of the optimization process. We apply the User Hints framework to three combinatorial optimization problems: Graph Clus-tering, Graph Drawing and Map Labeling. Prototype systems are presented and evaluated for each problem. The results of the study indicate that optimization processes can benefit from human interaction. The main goal of this thesis is to list cases where human interaction is helpful, and provide an ar-chitecture for supporting interactive optimization. Our contributions include the general User Hints framework and particular implementations of it for each optimization problem. We also present a general process, with guidelines, for applying our framework to other optimization problems.

This thesis develops and presents a design methodology that enables designers to work with the moving body in the design and evaluation of interactive, immersive environments built on motion-sensing technologies. The notion of making strange, that underpins the methodology, calls for designers to re-examine and revitalise their assumptions and conceptions of the moving body through bodily-based movement inquiries. This thesis addresses research questions about ways of understanding human movement, of describing and representing human movement and of accessing the felt experience of the moving body in the emerging field of movement-based interaction design. The research questions were explored through a series of three distinct, yet related, projects, each one focusing on different aspects of designing for moving bodies in interactive, immersive environments. The first project analysed an existing interactive product, Sony Playstation2c EyetoyTM, as a prototype of future movement-based interactive, immersive environments. The second project involved the design and development of a specific interactive, immersive artwork, Bystander. The third project worked with trained dancers and physical performers in a constructed design situation. The contributions of this research are first and foremost the design methodology of Moving and Making Strange: a design approach to movement-based interaction that prioritises the lived experience of movement by both designers and users and values the creative potential of the experiential, moving body. It consists of methods and tools for exploring, experiencing, describing, representing and generating movement that enable designers to shift between the multiple perspectives of the mover, the observer and the machine. It makes particular contributions as follows: • Laban movement analysis and Labanotation as a design tool. • Moving-Sensing schema: Suchman’s analytic framework adapted as a design tool. • Extension of existing human-centred design tools to explicitly represent moving bodies, in the form of movement-oriented personas and movementoriented scenarios. • Patterns of watching: a catalogue of audience behaviour in terms of movements and stillness in relation to engagement with a specific interactive, immersive artwork. • New methods for generating, enacting and experiencing movement, sourced from dance and movement improvisation practices.

In a world increasingly influenced by interactive interfaces, devices and services both in the commercial and non-commercial spheres, understanding interactivity and its underpinnings is essential. We have moved into a state of flux in which both culture and technology are in constant interplay and the only constant is change itself. The only future-proof approach to designing for and dealing with an environment of constant change in these systems and forms is to look for a mechanism and theoretical framework that underpins them all. Drawing upon a range of disciplines – from design, art, cognitive science, linguistics and more – this thesis argues that play is such a fundamental building block of culture, society, technology and cognition that it is the ideal lens through which to examine the interactive experience. It is versatile enough to cross boundaries and fundamental enough to be understood intuitively. Through an understanding of the intersection between movement, embodied cognition, metaphor and play, a set of principles of interactivity are developed that are flexible enough to analyse and be applied to a broad spectrum of interactive experiences, from interactive artworks to services to individual user interface elements. Finally, it is proposed that these principles provide a way to examine the phenomenal growth of social networks and the fundamental cultural shifts we are experiencing today as a result of the friction generated between emerging networked technologies and the industrial age structures they are dismantling.

In a world increasingly influenced by interactive interfaces, devices and services both in the commercial and non-commercial spheres, understanding interactivity and its underpinnings is essential. We have moved into a state of flux in which both culture and technology are in constant interplay and the only constant is change itself. The only future-proof approach to designing for and dealing with an environment of constant change in these systems and forms is to look for a mechanism and theoretical framework that underpins them all. Drawing upon a range of disciplines – from design, art, cognitive science, linguistics and more – this thesis argues that play is such a fundamental building block of culture, society, technology and cognition that it is the ideal lens through which to examine the interactive experience. It is versatile enough to cross boundaries and fundamental enough to be understood intuitively. Through an understanding of the intersection between movement, embodied cognition, metaphor and play, a set of principles of interactivity are developed that are flexible enough to analyse and be applied to a broad spectrum of interactive experiences, from interactive artworks to services to individual user interface elements. Finally, it is proposed that these principles provide a way to examine the phenomenal growth of social networks and the fundamental cultural shifts we are experiencing today as a result of the friction generated between emerging networked technologies and the industrial age structures they are dismantling.

In a world increasingly influenced by interactive interfaces, devices and services both in the commercial and non-commercial spheres, understanding interactivity and its underpinnings is essential. We have moved into a state of flux in which both culture and technology are in constant interplay and the only constant is change itself. The only future-proof approach to designing for and dealing with an environment of constant change in these systems and forms is to look for a mechanism and theoretical framework that underpins them all. Drawing upon a range of disciplines – from design, art, cognitive science, linguistics and more – this thesis argues that play is such a fundamental building block of culture, society, technology and cognition that it is the ideal lens through which to examine the interactive experience. It is versatile enough to cross boundaries and fundamental enough to be understood intuitively. Through an understanding of the intersection between movement, embodied cognition, metaphor and play, a set of principles of interactivity are developed that are flexible enough to analyse and be applied to a broad spectrum of interactive experiences, from interactive artworks to services to individual user interface elements. Finally, it is proposed that these principles provide a way to examine the phenomenal growth of social networks and the fundamental cultural shifts we are experiencing today as a result of the friction generated between emerging networked technologies and the industrial age structures they are dismantling.

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Parler de la télévision interactive, c'est aussi poser un regard sur les NTIC. Une des singularités de l'interactivité télévisuelle réside dans la possibilité pour le spectateur d'utiliser une « voie de retour » plus conséquente, ce qui lui donne le rôle de véritable émetteur et non pas de spectateur « passif ». De nouvelles pratiques d'interactions et d'échanges se mettent progressivement en place au sein des médias audiovisuels. Fortement dépendante de la numérisation des signes et de leurs traitements automatiques, le récepteur s'intercale entre une réception d'évènements et une production de signes, il devient à son tour générateur de nouvelles cartes de sens. Ce ne sont plus des rapports déterminés, entretenus par des systèmes machiniques, ce sont aussi des rapports extrasensoriels qui apparaissent. La télévision appréhendée par les sens proprio-tactilo-kinesthésiques ouvre une ère médiatique fondée sur des rapports interpersonnels réorganisant son système de représentation.

A new version of a Computer Aided Teaching System, CATSY-3, was created in order to allow greater flexibility and efficiency than older versions of CATSY. In the implementation of CATSY-3, the menu was transferred from the screen to the data tablet. In the process, the control structure of CATSY was rewritten to allow complete freedom of movement from one menu option to any another.A keyboard input feature (KEYIN) is also included in CATSY-3 in order to allow a more rapid mode of menu selection and to allow the option of precision coordinate input. Additional menu options are included in CATSY-3, namely, COPY, MOVE, REFRESH_OBJECT, interactive COLOR change, automatic set-up for input devices, among others.The history and description of various electronic chalkboard` implementations are also presented in this thesis.