Children's haptic experiences of tangible artifacts varying in hardness

ABSTRACT

In this paper we describe our investigations on the role of material hardness in the haptic experience of tangible artifacts.

Without seeing the artifacts children had to rank their experience on a scale of two antonyms while touching and holding these artifacts. In this experiment it was shown that children have no problem ranking hardness. Two groups could be identified: soft artifacts were found to be cute, speedy and warm, e.g., and hard artifacts boring, sad and old-fashioned. We think that paying attention to this factor in the design of tangible user interfaces for children can improve their experience.

References

1. Ackerman, D. 1990. A natural history of the senses. Clays Ltd, England.
2. Ashby, M. F. and Johnson, K. 2002. Materials and Design: The Art and Science of Material Selection in Product Design. Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann publication. 48--84.
3. Bakker, S., Vorstenbosch, D., Hoven, E. v.d., Hollemans, G. and Bergman, T. 2007. Tangible Interaction in Tabletop games: Studying iconic and symbolic play pieces. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (Salzburg, Austria). ACE'07. 163--170.
4. Bohn, J. 2004. The Smart Jigsaw Puzzle Assistant: Using RFID Technology for Building Augmented Real-World Games. Workshop on Gaming Applications in Pervasive Computing Environments at Pervasive 2004 (Vienna, Austria).
5. Choi, K. and Jun, C. 2007. A systematic approach to the Kansei factors of tactile sense regarding the surface roughness. In Applied Ergonomics, Vol. 38 (1). 53--63.
6. Hornecker, E. and Buur, J. 2006. Getting a Grip on Tangible Interaction: A Framework on Physical Space and Social Interactions. In Proceedings of SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Montreal, Canada). CHI'06. 437--446.
7. Kaltenbrunner, M. and Bencina, R. 2007. ReacTIVision: a computer-vision framework for table-based tangible interaction. In Proceedings of the 1^st international conference on Tangible and embedded interaction (Baton Rouge, USA). TEI'07. 69--74.
8. Kaye, J. and Brown, L. M. 2008. An eggs-ploration of the influence of material properties on haptic experience. Last accessed 17 Apr 2008, from: http://www.chi2008.org/altchisystem/dev/submissions/submi ssion_jofish_1.pdf
9. Klatzky, R. L., Lederman, S. J. and Reed, C. 1987. There's more to touch than meets the eye: The salience of object attributes for haptics with and without vision. In Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol. 166 (4), 356--369.
10. Lederman, S. J. and Klatzky, R. L. 1987. Hand movements: A window into haptic object recognition. In Cognitive Psychology 19, 1987, 342--368
11. Magerkurth, C., Engelke T. and Memisoglu, M. 2004. Augmenting the virtual domain with physical and social elements. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Advancements in Computer Entertainment Technology. Singapore, June 3--5, 2004. ACM Press, NY, 163--172.
12. Magerkurth, C., Memisoglu, H., Engelke, T. and Streitz, N. 2004. Towards the Next Generation of Tabletop Gaming Experiences. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface (London (Ontario), Canada). GI'04. 73--80.
13. Mandryk, R. L., Maranon, D. S. and Inkpen, K. H. 2002. False Prophets: Exploring Hybrid Board/Video Games. In extended abstracts of SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Minneapolis, USA). CHI'02. 640--641.
14. Pape, S., Dietz, L. and Tandler, P. 2004. Single display gaming: Examining collaborative games for multiuser tabletops. In Workshop on Gaming Applications in Pervasive Computing Environments at Pervasive 2004.
15. Patomäki, S., Raisamo, R., Salo, J., Pasto, V. and Hippula, A. 2004. Experiences on Haptic Interfaces for Visually Impaired Young Children. International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces (Pennsylvania, USA). ICMI'04. 281--288.
16. Prytherch, D. and McLundie, M. 2002. So What is Haptics Anyway? An Introduction to Psychological Studies of Touch and the Implications for and Understanding of Astists' Making and Thinking processes. Research Training Initiative. ISSN 1474--2365. Issue 2, Spring 2002.
17. Sonneveld, M. H. 2004. Dreamy hands: Exploring tactile aesthetics in design. In McDonagh, D., Hekkert, P., Erp, J. van and Gyi, D. (Ed.), Design and emotion: the experience of everyday things. Taylor & Francis, London. 228--232.
18. Ullmer, B. and Ishii, H. 2000. Emergent frameworks for tangible user interfaces. IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 39 (3--4), July 2000. 915--931.
19. Vavik, T. and Kourennayia, D. 2006. Exploring and teaching tactility in design. Working paper of Nordecode Oslo, May 2006. Last accessed 17 Apr 2008, from: http://nordcode.tkk.fi/oslopapers/Tom_Vavik.pdf

Index Terms

• Applied computing

  • Computers in other domains

    • Personal computers and PC applications

      • Computer games

• Hardware

  • Communication hardware, interfaces and storage

• Human-centered computing

  • Human computer interaction (HCI)

    • Interaction devices

      • Haptic devices

      • Touch screens

  • Interaction design

    • Interaction design process and methods

      • User centered design

• Information systems

  • Information systems applications

    • Multimedia information systems

      • Massively multiplayer online games

• Software and its engineering

  • Software organization and properties

    • Contextual software domains

      • Virtual worlds software

        • Interactive games