Tangible Interfaces for Manipulating Aggregates of Digital Information
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Tangible Interfaces for Manipulating Aggregates of Digital Information Brygg Anders Ullmer Bachelor of Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, January 1995 Master of Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 1997 Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences, School of Architecture and Planning, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology September 2002 © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002 All Rights Reserved _____________________________________________________ Author Brygg Anders Ullmer Program in Media Arts and Sciences August 9, 2002 _____________________________________________________ Certified by Hiroshi Ishii Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Thesis Supervisor _____________________________________________________ Accepted by Andrew B. Lippman Chair, Departmental Committee for Graduate Students Program in Media Arts and Sciences Tangible Interfaces for Manipulating Aggregates of Digital Information Brygg Anders Ullmer Submitted to the Program in Media Arts and Sciences, School of Architecture and Planning, on August 9, 2002 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Abstract This thesis develops new approaches for people to physically represent and interact with aggregates of digital information. These support the concept of Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs), a genre of human-computer interaction that uses spatially reconfigurable physical objects as representations and controls for digital information. The thesis supports the manipulation of information aggregates through systems of physical tokens and constraints. In these interfaces, physical tokens act as containers and parameters for referencing digital information elements and aggregates. Physical constraints are then used to map structured compositions of tokens onto a variety of computational interpretations. This approach is supported through the design and implementation of several systems. The mediaBlocks system enables people to use physical blocks to “copy and paste” digital media between specialized devices and general-purpose computers, and to physically compose and edit this content (e.g., to build multimedia presentations). This system also contributes new tangible interface techniques for binding, aggregating, and disaggregating sequences of digital information into physical objects. Tangible query interfaces allow people to physically express and manipulate database queries. This system demonstrates ways in which tangible interfaces can manipulate larger aggregates of information. One of these query approaches has been evaluated in a user study, which has compared favorably with a best-practice graphical interface alternative. These projects are used to support the claim that physically constrained tokens can provide an effective approach for interacting with aggregates of digital information. Thesis Supervisor: Hiroshi Ishii Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Thesis Committee _____________________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor Hiroshi Ishii Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Massachusetts Institute of Technology _____________________________________________________ Reader John Maeda Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Sony Corporation Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences Massachusetts Institute of Technology _____________________________________________________ Reader Robert J. K. Jacob Associate Professor of Computer Science Tufts University Acknowledgements I am deeply appreciative for the guidance, inspiration, and support from many people whom have made this research and seven-year journey possible. Special thanks to: Hiroshi Ishii, for his enormous energy and vision, for innumerable hours of discussion and guidance that gave shape to the thesis, and for the opportunity to participate in the creation of the Tangible Media Group. After long apprenticeship to a master maker of eyeglasses, I am finally learning to see many shapes and spaces that before were invisible to me. John Maeda, for his inspiring work and vision of the designer/engineer, his belief in me, and for helping me begin to see and seek the sensuality of physical objects. Rob Jacob, for his endless and invaluable support, guidance, patience, and belief in my work. Durrell Bishop, for the inspiration of his work and ideas, which opened my eyes to the possibilities underlying this thesis. Neil Gershenfeld, for offering conceptual and material tools for the making of many things, and for his visions of personal fabrication and beyond. Terry Winograd and Mitchel Resnick, for support of my master’s thesis, and much beyond. Joe Paradiso, for helping me through my general exams, and support throughout the duration. Bill Verplank, for support and teachings at both Interval and the Media Lab, and for first pointing me in the direction of physical constraints. Debby Hindus, a true mentor, for helping guide me to and through the Media Lab. Whitman Richards, for ideas of the non-accidental, and support of my interests in board games. Joe Jacobson, for inspiration, teachings, and support in experiments with reusable paper. John DiFrancesco, for his endless patience, support, good humor, and order out of chaos. Linda Peterson and Lisa Lieberson, for much support and guidance on details large and small. IBM, Mitsubishi, and AT&T, for generous fellowship support of my studies. Special thanks to David Boor, Joe Marks and Will Hill. To the undergraduate students who provided invaluable support with the thesis projects: Dylan Glas, Paul Grayson, Zach Malchano, Anna Lee, John Alex, Eli Kim, Jenn Yoon, Nick Fahey, Chris Fuchs, Chris Lopes, and Minpont Chien. Special thanks to Dylan for inspiring me to “trade places,” and to Paul for long aquaintance, countless conversations, and help in sharpening the conclusion’s key question. To the many fellow graduate students who’ve taught me so much: In TMG, to Paul Yarin, John Underkoffler, James Patten, Ben Piper, Ali Mazalek, Jay Lee, Matt Gorbet, Dan Chak, Gian Pangaro, Dan Maynes-Aminzade, Cati Vaucelle, Mike Ananny, Angela Chang, Craig Wisneski, Phil Frei, Joey Bersowska, Seungho Choo, Andy Dahley, Scott Brave, Sandia Ren, Victor Su, and Kazue Kobayashi, for their camaraderie, energy, collaboration, and patience with me during times of large writings. Tangible Interfaces for Manipulating Aggregates of Digital Information 7 In ACG, special thanks to Ben Fry, Casey Reas, Golan Levin, Nikita Pashenkov, Tom White, Bill Keays, Reed Kram, Matt Grenby, Justin Manor, and Chloe Chao. In the VLW, special thanks to Dave Small, Suguru Ishizaki, Lisa Strausfeld, and Earl Rennison. In the Media Lab at large, Kelly Heaton, Steve Gray, Rob Poor, Tim McNerney, Rich Fletcher, Matt Reynolds, Rehmi Post, Ravi Pappu, Wendy Plesniak, Lisa Stifelman, Thad Starner, Maggie Orth, Marina Umaschi-Bers, Tara Rosenberger-Shankar, Jen Glos, Ivan Chardin, Nelson Minar, Karrie Karahalios, Fernanda Viegas, Hyun-Yeul Lee, and many others. Kwin Kramer, Rick Borovoy, and Matt Klicka, for support with inductive communications. Axel Kilian, who sees so clearly and teaches so much, for invaluable support with Strata and much else. Fellow students at a distance: Lars Erik Holmquist, Johan Redström, Staffan Björk, Jennica Falk, Takeo Igarashi, Eva Hornecker, Steven Schkolne, Michael Pruett, and David McGee. Sony CSL, especially Jun Rekimoto, Haruo Oba, Shigeru Tajima, Yuji Ayatsuka, Tota Hasegawa, Nobuyuki Matsushita, and Kayoko Wada, for an inspiring summer of research. Also to NSF, JISTEC, and the Summer Institute in Japan for support. Interval Research, my “first graduate school,” and to the amazing people who opened my mind to many new ways of thinking and doing. Special thanks to Paul Freiberger, Terry Winograd, David Liddle, Debby Hindus, Bill Verplank, Michael Naimark, Lee Felsenstein, Jim Boyden, Dick Shoup, Meg Withgott, Jonathan Cohen, Philippe Piernot, Margaret Minsky, Ellen Levy, Sean White, Karon MacLean, Marc Davis, Neal Bhadkamkar, and many others. The many good people of ICC who provided wonderful support with Strata/ICC. Special thanks to Shoji Itoh, Tetsushi Nonaka, Haruo Noma, Chie Arai, Seiji Sawaguchi, Koichi Kido, Hiroshi Kanechiku, Shiro Yamamoto, and many others. Joe Branc, Joel Stanfield, and Steve Whittaker, for highly valued support and encouragement. Ron MacNeil, for opening the doors to the Media Lab and introducing me to design. John W. Durham, for detailed comments on the abacus and backgammon. Martin Nilsson, for early feedback on the query interfaces from a commercial perspective. Hannes Vilhjálmsson, for six years of friendship, support, and long nights of rich discussion. My parents, brother, sister-in-law, and yet-to-be-met nephew, for their unwavering love, support and guidance in pulling everything into perspective. …and to Miriam Konkel, my inspiration of recent years and my dream for the future… 8 Tangible Interfaces for Manipulating Aggregates of Digital Information Contents 1 INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................ 15 1.1 BASIC CONCEPT AND APPROACH................................................................................................. 16 1.2 DISTINGUISHING PROPERTIES OF TANGIBLE INTERFACES ............................................................