EventTable: How We Think with Our Hands

Funded by SSHRC and NSERC RTI

Humans are masters of making difficult cognitive tasks easier by using their hands to structure the environment – think of how you might arrange objects you need to take with you by the door or make a pile of edges pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.  EventTable is a tangible tabletop prototyping platform which allows us to investigate how supporting users’ direct physical interaction with embedded computational environments can support spatial problem solving. Instead of using a mouse and cursor to move digital objects.  EventTable allows users to directly move computationally augmented physical objects. Prototypes built on EventTable include touch and tangible jigsaw puzzles for children, a tangible concept mapping tool, and a sustainability simulation for children.

Papers

• Antle, A.N. Exploring how children use their hands to think: An embodied interactional analysis, Behaviour and Information Technology, (2012) in press.
• Antle, A.N., Wise, A. and Neilsen, K. Making theory tangible: Using learning theory to inform tangible design for children. In Proceedings of Conference on Interaction Design for Children (IDC’11), ACM Press (Madison, WI, USA, 2011), 11-20.
• Tanenbaum, K. and Antle, A.N. An Embodied Approach to Concept Mapping on a Tangible Tabletop. In (eds.) Rieger, B., Amouzegar, M.A., and Ao. S. I.  IAENG Transactions on Engineering Technologies Volume II -Special Edition of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science (2009), American Institute of Physics, 121-132.
• Antle, A.N. Hands on What? Comparing children’s mouse-based and tangible-based interaction, In Proceedings of Conference on Interaction Design and Children, (2009) ACM Press, 80-88.
• Antle, A.N., Droumeva, M. and Ha, D. Thinking with hands: An embodied approach to the analysis of children’s interaction with computational objects. In Proceedings of Extended Abstracts of Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems (CHI ’09), ACM Press (Boston, USA, 2009), 3961-3966.
• Antle, A.N., Analyzing children’s hand actions using tangible user interfaces, In Workshop on Children and Tangibles, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, (2009).

Video

• GUI Direct Placement Actions
• GUI Exploratory Actions
• GUI Indirect Placement Actions
• PUI Direct Placement Actions
• PUI Exploratory Actions
• PUI Indirect Placement Actions
• TUI Direct Placement Actions
• TUI Exploratory Actions
• TUI Indirect Placement Actions

**Please cite appropriately. Please do not copy or distribute.