Empowering materiality: inspiring the design of tangible interactions.

ABSTRACTTangible user interfaces utilize our ability to interact with everyday objects in order to manipulate virtual data. Designers and engineers usually follow the rule "form follows function", they support an existing interaction with a purpose-built interface. Still, we do not fully exploit the expressiveness of forms, materials and shapes of the nondigital objects we interact with. Therefore, we propose to invert the design process: we empower materiality to inspire the implementation of tangible interactions. Glass objects were chosen as an example of culturally and structurally rich objects: in a three-month workshop, these glass objects were transformed into interactive artefacts. In the paper, we present three resulting contributions: First, we describe our inverted design process as a tool for the stimulation of multidisciplinary development. Second, we derive a list of material-induced interactions. Third, we suggest form-related interactions as a means of designing future tangible interfaces.