Research

Turning Search into Tangible Interaction

Professor Stolerman

Dealing with large amounts of data is from a user perspective not always about "finding" one final and correct answer. In some situations the user may not know what to look for and what an answer might look like. In these situations the search process can be seen as a form of interaction and exploration. These explorative interactions can of course be designed within the traditional desktop and GUI (Graphical User Interface) paradigm.

New forms of interaction (such as Tangible Interfaces) are promising, raising the possibility of turning data into 3-dimensional spaces and "objects". A user can explore these "objects" in a more experiential way, using multimodal interactions. The data can be tactile, audible, or designed for other forms of experiences.

The basic idea is that the representation of data does not have to correlate with what the user considers to be "natural". Attempts like these have, for instance, been labeled the "massification of the intangible", or "tangible bits".

Multimodal Table-type Tangible User Interface

Turning search into a tangible interactive experience changes how a user may be able to "work" with the data, not as a searchable space of data but as a dynamic material possible to explore and examine. With this hands-on interaction with the "material" the "search" also becomes more similar to how we interact with our physical reality.