Stackables

Abstract

We introduce Stackables: tangibles designed to support faceted information seeking in a variety of contexts. We are faced, more than ever, with tasks that require us to find, access, and act on information by ourselves or together with others. Current interfaces for browsing and search in large data spaces, however, largely focus on the support of either individual or collaborative activities. Stackables were designed to bridge this gap and be useful in meetings, for sharing results from individual search activities, and for realistic datasets including multiple facets with large value ranges. Each Stackable tangible represents search parameters that can be shared amongst collaborators, modified during an information seeking process, and stored and transferred. We describe Stackables, their flexible and expressive combination to formulate queries, and the underlying interaction concept in detail. An evaluation provides initial evidence of their usability in targeted and exploratory information seeking tasks.

Cross-Device Taxonomy

“…Pinch across screens to define neighbours [237] , Recognizing neighbouring devices from touch patterns through brackets [204] IMU IMU Bump devices to define neighbours [127] magnetic magnetic Detect upper/lower device in device stacks [176] , detect magnetic field change to define neighbours [147] optical fiducial markers…”

Interaction for Immersive Analytics

“…Some recent work has even demonstrated the use of shape(changing) displays (e. g., [102]). Beyond spatial data, however, a number of authors has also demonstrated the usefulness of tangible interaction with abstract data representations (e. g., [37,77,93,137]). A closely related form of interaction is the exploration of physical visualizations [79].…”

Extending the Design Space of Tangible Objects via Low-Resolution Edge Displays

“…Almost all current tangibles provide visual feedback on an integrated display screen when available [3,13,15,16] or on an external display, such as an interactive wall [8,24] and interactive tabletops [23,29]. Some have also explored lights [11] and other forms of feedback, such as haptic [20][21][22] and auditory [4].…”

“…However, when stacked, users could only see the display of the top tangible. Some active tangibles (e.g., Stackables [13]) attach the display on the side to address this, but are not intended for tabletop interaction since the side-screen is difficult to see when on the table. Low-resolution edge display augmented tangibles address this by providing feedback directly on the tangibles that is visible even when tangibles are stacked.…”