Dynamic Mapping of Physical Controls for Tabletop Groupware
By Rebecca Fiebrink (Princeton University), Dan Morris and Meredith Ringel Morris (Microsoft Research)
Summary:
Interactive tabletops allow for multi-touch interaction but lack precision and feedback control. This paper studies how the addition of virtual controls with physical controls can affect tabletop use. First, physical controllers were given to the users that mapped with the available application. The intention of the controllers is to increase precision and control.
Implementation
The researchers defined key guidelines for the study:
1) Users can use direct touch or indirect control
2) Only one shared multi-touch area
3) Physical controllers for precise control with feedback
4) Allow for mapping and remapping of controllers
4) Saving controller settings/mappings
The study will be performed on the tabletop audio editing application, Ensemble. Forty Microsoft employees are the participants and they are divided into ten teams. Each team then had to perform a series of "matching" tasks in a thirty minute time frame.
Outcome
The groups were successful in the tasks with a median of 75% correct on the available parameters. Additionally over 85% of participants agreed that they had improved knowledge of edits made by their teammates.
As shown below, the graph represents the total edits by parameter and manipulation type.
Finally, the majority of participants preferred the physical controllers since it improved accuracy and provided feedback.
Discussion:
This paper was quite informative and the results seemed intuitive. Physical controllers aid in allowing the user to have the ease of a collaborative tabletop display with tangible feedback. Per Norman, proper feedback is a key to good design and it was interesting to see it implemented in the tabletop. Overall, I enjoyed the article and it was a good extension to the previous paper I read about in the Augmenting Interactive Tabletop (see previous blog post).
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