In this paper we describe The Pond, a system used to search for and visualise data elements on an engaging tabletop display. The Pond uses methods of unencumbered interaction and audio feedback to allow users to investigate data elements, and supports shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration with the physical Pond artefact mediating the collaboration between those people gathered around it. The user interface is based on an ecosystem metaphor, presenting data elements in the form of shoals of aquatic creatures inside a virtual 3D pond. The Pond is an interactive system offering an appealing and novel way to search for and interchange information. We describe the motivation and design choices behind The Pond, the system as it stands today, details of its implementation, and observations from a study of The Pond in use.
This paper describes how home appliances might be enhanced to improve user awareness of energy usage. Households wish to lead comfortable and manageable lives. Balancing this reasonable desire with the environmental and political goal of reducing electricity usage is a challenge that we claim is best met through the design of interfaces that allows users better control of their usage and unobtrusively informs them of the actions of their peers. A set of design principles along these lines is formulated in this paper. We have built a fully functional prototype home appliance with a socially aware interface to signal the aggregate usage of the user's peer group according to these principles, and present the prototype in the paper.
A testbed was developed aiming to contribute to further knowledge on what is required from a VR application in order to be useful for planning of assembly tasks. In a pilot study the testbed was tested on students. The focus of the study was to explore the users’ behaviour, and to gain a better understanding of their experience using VR. The students experienced a gap between the real world and VR, which confirms theories that VR is not a copy or twin of an object or environment.
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