MOTORS AND MUSIC – explorations of tangible interaction

ABSTRACT

Human-computer interaction is spreading into every-day objects like phones, cars, toys, books and instruments. Many interactions are implicit (the door “does the right thing” when I approach); others are more “explicit” (I push it). How do you know what the door is doing (e.g. “not allowed”)? Can you control it more expressively (e.g. “fling”). If the door has a motor in it; can we “feel” the force/motion/inertia/reluctance?

Music and musical performance are a challenge to HCI. Some of the best performances require precise expressive motions. I will describe experiments which use active force feedback (haptics) in the design of musical controllers. There are lessons for a broad range of interaction designers.

About

Bill Verplank is an interaction designer, human-factors engineer and lecturer at Stanford University. Bill Verplank has an amazing ability to draw at the same time as he talks. He explains the history and future of interaction design with paradigms that serve as patterns for the way people think about the subject. He describes the process of designing interactions with a concise diagrams, and gives examples.

Bill did mechanical engineering design at Stanford and MIT (PhD), testing at Xerox, design at IDEO and research at Interval. He lectures regularly at Stanford, IDII, CIID, TU/e and ID/IIT, and attends CHI, TEI and NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression).