This thesis aims to explore how to physically interact with computational models on an interactive tabletop display. The research began with the design and implementation of several prototype systems. The research of the prototype systems showed that tangible interactions on interactive tabletops have the potential to be more effective on some tasks than traditional interfaces that use screen displays, keyboards and mice. The prototype work shaped the research to focus on the effectiveness of adopting tangible interactions on interactive tabletops. To substantiate the thesis claims, this thesis develops an interactive tabletop application, Pathways, to support the fitting process in modeling biological systems. Pathways supports the concepts of Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) and tabletop visualizations. It realizes real-time simulation of models and provides comparisons of simulation results with experimental data on the tabletop. It also visualizes the simulation of the model with animations. In addition to that, Pathways introduces a new visualization to help systems biologists quickly compare the simulation results. This thesis provides the quantitative and qualitative evaluation results of Pathways. The evidence showed that using tangible interactions to control numerical values is practical. The results also showed that in experimental conditions users achieved better fitting results and faster fitting results on Pathways than the control group, which used the systems biologists' current tools. The results further suggested that it is possible to recruit non-experts to perform the fitting tasks that are usually done by professional systems biologists.

All people need to communicate - but not all people have the same preconditions. Some are limited in their ability to speak, read and write, for example, people with severe learning difficulties.To help support this communities it is apparent that new tools need to be created to help enhance communication by providing alternative means. Promoting independence Communicative technologies can potentially increase independence amongst a group of people who rely on caregivers and assistance on a daily basis and provide opportunities of enhancing community and safety through social connectedness. Multi-Touch Devices The technology for multitouch tables and devices has existed for a few years and is continually improving. This opens new doors for interaction and can be a potential asset for people with Cognitive Disabilities.

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I denna uppsats undersöks användningen, användbarheten, samt för- och nackdelar medäventyrsrollspel som behandlingsform vid psykisk ohälsa och autismspektrumtillstånd.För att studera detta har vi genomfört en kvalitativ intervjustudie med verksammapraktiker. Resultatet visar att behandlingens struktur är liknande för olika klientgrupperäven om behandlingsfokuset kan skilja sig beroende på klientens problematik.Återkommande teman är användandet av fantasin som verktyg vid behandling,äventyrsrollspelet som ramverk, social träning samt möjligheten till personligutveckling vilket är positiva aspekter av behandlingen. Dock är behandlingen begränsadför individer med vissa typer av problematik och skulle därmed fungera bättre som enkompletterande terapi. Den har även högt ställda kompetenskrav på behandlare som villanvända metoden. I diskussionen använder vi symbolisk interaktionism som teoretisktramverk för att tolka resultatet. / This study explores the usage, applications, as well as the pros and cons of utilizingtabletop role-playing games as a method of therapy for individuals with mental illnessand autism spectrum disorder. Qualitative interviews were conducted with practitionerswho apply the method. The result shows that the method is structured similarly fordifferent client groups while treatment focus changes according to individual diagnoses.Some recurring themes were: fantasy as a tool for therapy, the tabletop role-playinggame framework, social training, and possibility for personal growth which are allpositive aspects of the treatment. However, the treatment has limitations when used onindividuals with certain types of mental health problems and would instead work betteras a complementary treatment. However, a high level of competence is required forpractitioners who wish to utilize the method. In the discussion we seek to answer ourexplored issues through a symbolic interactionist theoretical standpoint.

Tabletop roleplaying games are a type of social, narrative game driven by a group conversation in which a narrative which is co-created by the participants and propelled forward by some mechanical component (for example dice rolls used to determine the narrative outcomes of actions). As mode of spontaneous conversation that has a unique set of specific characteristics, it might be fair to claim that TTRPGs constitute a unique oral genre (or, in conversation analytic terms, a unique speech-exchange system).  One of the most notable characteristics of TTRPGs as conversations is the intensive use of footing shifts. As the players alternate between orienting toward the conversation as players of a game with mechanical components and as co-creators of a joint narrative, various different resources are used to signal what footing a particular turn-at-talk is produced from. Using video from Critical Role, a live-streamed Dungeons & Dragons show, this paper examines the use of footing in TTRPGs and what resources are used to signal these.  The results of the study showed that several different types of footing were used in this material, with a large amount of overlap between them. Though it was possible to identify the primary resources for signalling some of them, for others it was not clear.

[pt] Ao mergulhar na área dos estudos lúdicos, é possível notar que os jogos muitas vezes são estudados como ferramentas educativas ou fenômenos sócio-antropológicos. Até o momento, pouco foi discutido sobre os processo de aprendizado de jogos – e muito menos sobre os manuais de regras de jogos, que são constantemente negligenciados inclusive nos projetos e produção de jogos. Por este motivo, a presente dissertação tem como objetivo iniciar um diálogo sobre manuais de jogos, culminando na proposta de critérios de ordenação para as informações contidas nestes documentos, tendo como referência o ponto de vista da Ergonomia Informacional. Considerando a escassez de produção de bibliografia específica sobre o assunto, a fundamentação teórica foi construída a partir da revisão bibliográfica de literatura referente às áreas de estudo da Ergonomia Informacional, Estudos Lúdicos, Psicologia Cognitiva, Linguística e Educação – apresentados nos capítulos 2 a 4. Esses conteúdos foram, então, organizados no contexto da Hierarquia Informacional de Manuais de Jogos Analógicos, tendo como o foco o processo de aprendizado de regras em situações de primeiro uso. A fim de avaliar a aplicabilidade prática dos levantamentos realizados, foi conduzida uma rodada de entrevistas com game designers que possuem experiência com a redação de manuais de jogos – seja para jogos de autoria própria ou de terceiros. A partir das respostas das entrevistas, aliadas ao referencial teórico, foi então definida uma lista de diretrizes de ordenação das regras de manuais de jogos analógicos, além de critérios de utilização de imagens complementares ao texto. Por fim, estas diretrizes foram postas à prova por meio de um experimento de playtest , no qual usuários foram convidados a jogar dois jogos: No Thanks! e SET. Cada grupo de usuários – composto por grupos de 3 a 4 participantes – interagiu com um jogo com seu manual original e o outro com um manual revisado a partir das diretrizes definidas pela presente pesquisa. A fim de avaliar o desempenho de cada grupo, foram definidas as seguintes variáveis a serem analisadas: tempo de leitura do manual; tempo de jogo; quantidade de erros cometidos; quantidade de interrupções no jogo para revisar as regras; tempo total de interrupção do jogo para revisar as regras. Além disso, foi considerada a opinião de cada participante em relação à redação do texto, a fim de identificar se os pontos de atenção identificados em cada manual se tornaram aparentes durante a experiência de primeiro uso dos manuais e jogos em questão. Foi feita uma análise da aplicação do experimento, identificando os impactos que as alterações do manual proporcionaram no desempenho dos participantes. Como resultado, e devido às limitações de contato físico e presencial decorrentes da situação de pandemia e quarentena, em função Covid-19, o resultado final desta dissertação é a proposta revisada do experimento, a ser aplicado em momento mais propício à pesquisas presenciais. / [en] By dwelling on the area of Playful Studies, it becomes hugely noticeable that games are often regarded as educational tools of socio-anthropological phenomena. So far, very little has been discussed about the board game learning process, and even less about their rulebooks, which tend to be sidelined even during the development and production of tabletop games. For this reason, this dissertation aims to start a conversation about tabletop games rulebooks, culminating in a proposition of new criteria that can be used to better organize the information contained in rulebooks of tabletop games. Those criteria were determined from the standpoint of Informational Ergonomics and Human Factors. Considering the shortage of bibliography regarding this specific matter, the theoretical foundation has been built upon the literature review of works in the fields of Informational Ergonomics, Playful Studies, Cognitive Psychology, Linguistics and Education – presented in chapters 2 through 4. The relevant concepts and ideas found on these works were then adapted to the context of the Informational Hierarchy of Tabletop Games Rulebooks, specifically during the first time when players were interacting with the games and their rulebooks. In order to evaluate how useful those findings were in practice, a round of interviews was conducted with game designers who have previous experience with writing rulebooks – either for their games or as a consultant. Their answers, along with the theoretical foundation previously mentioned, served as the foundation to propose a list of guidelines, that aim to help organize the information contained in tabletop rulebooks and the usage of complementary images to better explain the game s rules. Those guidelines were then put to the test by means of an experiment, in which participants were invited to take part in a playtest of two well-known games: No Thanks! and SET. Each group of players interacted with the two games: the first, containing its original rulebook; the second, containing a revised version, based on the previously mentioned criteria or organization. To evaluate the group s performance, five variables were analyzed: Time elapsed while reading the rulebook; time elapsed during the game; the quantity of mistakes made; the quantity of pauses in order to revise the game s rules; and time elapsed while revising the game s rules. On top of that, the participants opinions and impressions were taken into consideration, in order to identify whether the points of concern previously mentioned became apparent to them as well, as a result of their interactions with the games and their rulebooks. Afterwards, the experiment results were analyzed, in order to identify the extent of the impact that the new criteria had on the player s performance. Due to the pandemic and quarantine – caused by Covid-19 –, this dissertation s final result is a revised proposal for the experiment – to be applied whenever the conditions once again favour the development of experimental and in-person research.

Tabletop games have within recent years evolvedto become more and more complex, such as through the useof dynamic rules, permanently changing how the game worksafter a playthrough, and players playing different roles in thegame. This leads to unique challenges for Artificial Intelligence.A Tabletop Games Framework (TAG) is a framework intended topromote research within general AI for modern tabletop games.Rolling Horizon Evolutionary Algorithms (RHEA) are a typeof algorithms that have been applied to games with successin the past. By implementing a RHEA agent we can studyhow it compares to other types of agents such as Monte CarloTree Search and Random Mutation Hill Climbing agents. Ofparticular interest is the game Pandemic (2008), as the existingagents are unable to win at it.

Cette thèse traite des interfaces utilisateur tangibles (TUI). La première partie de ce manuscrit concerne l'interaction tangible sur table interactive. Nous introduisons tout d'abord les TUIs et les tables interactives. Nous validons une hypothèse concernant la spécialisation de la forme des interacteurs tangibles et nous en tirons les conséquences pour la conception des TUIs. Nous proposons une solution de boîtier à boutons pour y déporter certaines opérations dans le contexte d'une TUI sur table interactive. Nous abordons la construction et le développement d'un système de tables interactives tangibles transportables et à faible coût permettant de faire du prototypage rapide de TUIs. Nous terminons en soulignant les particularités de l'évaluation expérimentale des TUIs. La seconde partie de ce manuscrit traite un cas d'application d'une TUI pour les géosciences : GeoTUI. Nous commençons par présenter le contexte métier des géophysiciens et leurs besoins en terme de nouveaux moyens d'interaction. Nous présentons les résultats de notre conception d'une TUI pour les géosciences. Nous précisons le détail du développement de notre prototype. Pour terminer, nous présentons les deux expérimentations utilisateurs qui ont été conduites pour valider nos choix de conception. / This thesis focuses on tangible user interfaces (TUI). The first part of this manuscript is about tangible interaction on tabletop. We first introduce TUIs and tabletops. We validate an hypothesis about the specialization of the form of the tangible objects, and conclude from that consequences on TUIs design. We propose the solution of a button box to deport some operations in the context of tabletop TUI. We present the construction and development of a transportable and low cost tabletop TUI system that allows rapid TUI prototyping. We end pointing out the special features of user experiments of TUIs. The second part of this manuscript deals with an application case of a TUI for geoscience: GeoTUI. We start presenting the context of the geophysicists work and their need in term of new way of interation. We present the results of our design of a TUI for geoscience. We detail the development of our prototype. To finish, we present two user experiments we conducted to validate our design choices.

La creatividad es una habilidad de especial interés para el desarrollo humano dado que es una de las dimensiones que permite al individuo y en última instancia a la sociedad enfrentarse a nuevos problemas y retos de forma satisfactoria. Además de entender la creatividad como una serie de factores relativos al individuo creativo, debe tenerse en cuenta que el grado de motivación intrínseca, el entorno y otros factores sociales pueden tener un efecto relevante sobre el desarrollo de esta importante habilidad, por lo que resulta de interés explorarla en el contexto de utilización de tecnologías de la información. En particular, dado que los procesos comunicativos, el intercambio de ideas y la interacción colaborativa entre individuos son un pilar fundamental en los procesos creativos, y también que en gran medida todas ellas son características mayormente facilitadas por las mesas interactivas, una de las principales contribuciones de esta tesis consiste precisamente en la exploración de la idoneidad de las superficies interactivas en tareas creativas colaborativas de construcción en estudiantes adolescentes. Partiendo del estudio realizado, que aporta evidencia empírica acerca de la adecuación de las superficies interactivas como tecnología de potencial para el fomento de la creatividad, esta tesis presenta AGORAS: un middleware para la construcción de ecosistemas de juegos 2D para mesas interactivas, y cuya idea final es entender actividades de aprendizaje más enriquecedoras como aquellas que permiten la propia creación de juegos y su posterior consumo. En el contexto de esta tesis también se ha desarrollado un toolkit básico para construcción de interfaces de usuario para superficies interactivas, se ha desarrollado un modelo de ecosistema basado en entidades que son simulables de acuerdo a leyes físicas; y se ha dotado al modelo de aproximación basada en reglas de comportamiento enriquecidas con expresiones dataflows y de su correspondiente editor para superficies. / Catalá Bolós, A. (2012). AGORAS: Augmented Generation of Reactive Ambients on Surfaces. Towards educational places for action, discussion and reflection to support creative learning on interactive surfaces [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/16695 / Palancia

Tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs), also known as Pen-and-Paper role-playing games(PnP-RPGs), are games that can be described as a mix between board games and improvisationaltheatre. Each player takes on the role of a single character, while the game’s leader(GM or DM) is in charge of both simulating the game world, acting out all remainingcharacters and facilitating the game rules. The games are often played in campaigns,continual stories told over several gameplay sessions. This thesis investigates whetherplayers’ types/characteristics and preferences affect the enjoyment of play, and in particularwhether being coherent with the rest of the role-play group in these respects affects theenjoyment of TRPG play. The research questions were addressed primarily by a surveyamong TRPG players that received 1,982 completed questionnaires. These were thenanalysed by correlation and factor analyses in order to find connections between responses.The thesis work shows that the length and depth of previous experiences have almost nocorrelation to the level of enjoyment. Some aspects of the game itself contributed to theenjoyment, but a clearer factor was that of group coherence – if the player perceives thegroup to have the same or similar stances as him/herself on game preferences.Keywords: tabletop role-playing game, pen-and-paper role-playing game, groupcoherence, game enjoyment, satisfaction / Bordsrollspel (TRPGs), även känt som penna-och-papper-rollspel (PnP-RPGs), är en typ avspel som kan beskrivas som en blandning mellan brädspel och improvisationsteater. Varjespelare antar rollen av en karaktär, medan spelledaren (GM eller DM) ansvarar för simuleringenav spelvärlden, agerandet av resterande karaktärer samt ansvar för regelhållningen.Denna uppsats undersöker om spelartyper (egenskaper) och deras preferenser påverkarspelglädjen, och i synnerhet huruvida det är viktigt att ha samma uppfattning som den övrigagruppen i dessa frågor (gruppkoherens). Forskningsfrågorna besvarades huvudsakligengenom en enkätundersökning bland TRPG-spelare som gav 1982 komplett ifyllda enkätsvar.Dessa analyserades sedan med korrelations- och faktoranalyser för att hitta kopplingarmellan svaren. Uppsatsen visar att längden och djupet av tidigare spelupplevelser nästan intehar något samband med nivån av spelglädje. Några aspekter av själva spelet bidrog däremottill spelglädjen, och den tydligaste faktorn var gruppens koherens – om spelaren uppfattar attgruppen har samma eller liknande ståndpunkter som sig själv när det gäller spelpreferenser.Nyckelord: bordsrollspel, penna- och papper-rollspel, gruppkoherens, spelglädje, nöjdhet