Binaebi Akah » Critique of Touch Interfaces
The following paper was an assignment written in March 2009 for Dr Jeffrey Bardzell's experience design course at Indiana University. For this assignment, we were to write a "substantive, comparative critique of two digital interface interactions. This included describing the interaction, defining characteristics, etc. The goal was to determine insights to help design/redesign digital interactions.
Opening Paragraphs
First, it is imperative to know that I am a tactile person. It is important for me to caress the velvety softness of a rose petal with the pad of my finger, or brush away the rubbery eraser dust from a page of notes with the side of my hand. Second, I adore working with my hands. When I am not working on school projects that chain me to a computer, I am busy painting, sketching, sewing, playing violin, even renovating furniture.
This need to experience physically that with which I'm working ignited my interest in tangible and touch user interfaces. In Ishii's introduction to tangible user interfaces (TUIs), he claims TUIs "take advantage of our natural ability to understand and manipulate physical forms while harnessing the power of computational simulation" (36). Excellent, my hands can have an active role and I can still "harness the power" of the computer. It seems such an easy leap to switch from working with real world objects to working with TUIs, but it is no such thing. TUIs like David Merrill's siftables and U-Touch's virtual air hockey as they exist now cannot replace their tangible predecessors. Their hypermediated existence relies on experiences which, for me, are materially and sensually richer.
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