Media cushion

In this paper, we argue for novel user experience design methods, in the context of reimagining ergonomics of interactive furniture. There is a need for improving both creativity and productivity at the workplace, and there is ample room for scientific advancements brought by embedded systems, sensors and actuators which can now be part of future pieces of furniture. Creative industries' workers are becoming more prominent as countries move towards intellectual-based economies. Consequently, the workplace needs to be reconfigured so that creativity and productivity can be better promoted at these spaces. This position paper presents several directions that can shed light on how we can better design interactive furniture for the workplace. In particular, we argue for a multisensorial approach as a promising way of achieving the above-mentioned goals.

Sensors (Basel, Switzerland), 2017

As a sedentary lifestyle leads to numerous health problems, it is important to keep constant motivation for a more active lifestyle. A large majority of the worldwide population, such as office workers, long journey vehicle drivers and wheelchair users, spends several hours every day in sedentary activities. The postures that sedentary lifestyle users assume during daily activities hide valuable information that can reveal their wellness and general health condition. Aiming at mining such underlying information, we developed a cushion-based system to assess their activity levels and recognize the activity from the information hidden in sitting postures. By placing the smart cushion on the chair, we can monitor users' postures and body swings, using the sensors deployed in the cushion. Specifically, we construct a body posture analysis model to recognize sitting behaviors. In addition, we provided a smart cushion that effectively combine pressure and inertial sensors. Finally, we...

This paper describes the move.me interaction prototype developed in conjunction with V2_lab in Rotterdam. move.me proposes a scenario for social interaction and the notion of social intimacy. Interaction with sensory enhanced, soft, pliable, tactile, throw-able cushions afford new approaches to pleasure, movement and play. A somatics approach to touch and kinaesthesia provides an underlying design framework. The technology developed for move.me uses the surface of the cushion as an intelligent tactile interface. Making use of a movement analysis system called Laban Effort-Shape, we have developed a model that provides a high-level interpretation of varying qualities of touch and motion trajectory. We describe the notion of social intimacy, and how we model it through techniques in somatics and performance practice. We describe the underlying concepts of move.me and its motivations. We illustrate the structural layers of interaction and related technical detail. Finally, we discuss the related body of work in the context of evaluating our approach and conclude with plans for future work.

Design, User Experience, and Usability: Interactive Experience Design, 2015

Sleep disorders are increasingly common view and it is a growing problem in modern societies. There are several problems that can cause this type of disturbance, being the demanding obligations of work and study, a current problem, which leads individuals to allocate more time their rest period in at home. Currently, we are seeing the replacement of handwork by mental, automated and computerized work, which translates into an increasing percentage of time spent performing repetitive static character tasks (physical effort), being able to compare yourself to your work done in industry, traditional production lines (Caetano & Vala 2002). It is no less demanding contexts of labor among which are those activities that involve the long hours spent at the computer. This paper presents a study whose objective was to research the human-computer interaction with the time spent by young adults in carrying out activities with computing devices (computer, tablet or mobile phone) in residences' bedrooms of air force military and university students in rest time periods and with ecological validation with observation method to video analysis and using a Software iSEE. A sample of 32956 observations, which corresponds to 1824 sleep-hours of 24 young adults, was classified into two (2) Interaction Categories (IC), body position while participants were awake in bed (2873 observations) and doing activities (3001 observations). The image registration was performed during the period of six months, divided into two periods with each participant, to enable the analysis of different times of the year and not just a single period can mean a higher specific activity. The results show that 38.7 % (N = 1113 observations) of the participants presented the sitting as the most common postural behavior during awake in bed when the participants doing activities. In reference of activities in bed, 49.2 % (N = 1475) used the computer, followed by Using mobile devices, with 16.7 % (N = 501) of observations. When we analyze the group of participants, the students showed 49.2 % of the period of activity in bed, using the computer, and 13.8 % used mobile equipment. In the same reference, the military also used the computer (49 %) as the main activity in bed during the night rest, but they used more mobile devices (19.4 %) than students. Regarding the postures, students used the sitting (57.1 %) as the main active posture when in bed, however, the military was the only sitting 3rd

Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2020

Figure 1. Example of interaction with ThinkCushion: a) Jane and Sue sit on the sofa, Sue leans on ThinkCushion triggering the playback of an audio message, b) The audio directs the girls' attention towards the cushion and they start exploring it. Sue presses an interactive area of the cushion that captures audio for 5 seconds signalling with blinking LEDs, c-d) after the recording two other areas of the cushion blink giving the option to save (green tick) or delete (grey cross) the audio just recorded. e) Jane presses the centre of the cushion to hear if the audio has been successfully saved or deleted.

: This paper outlines some general strengths and weaknesses of using psychological theoretical approaches beyond their original domains, focussing on Rotter's (1966) Internal and External Locus of Control construct. Rotter's theory examines perceived locus of control of individuals during their social interactions (I/E). The issues of why and how I/E may be a useful theoretical approach to human computer interaction are addressed. Specific problems encountered in importing I/E into HCI are then described. An Interface Evaluation Experiment is discussed. First the system used for evaluation purposes is described, as well as the verbal protocol technique used, and the methods of analysis. Finally conclusions about the interface are presented. In this context I/E as an interface evaluation tool is discussed, as are related issues of importing psychological theories into HCI. Introduction:Locus of Control and HCI. Psychological theories often have a range of convenience which ex...

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society ... Annual Meeting, 2016

This study tested user knowledge and the use of the controls for their work chairs for a volunteer sample of 1004 office workers who were randomly selected for survey from 23 different companies and who were sitting on one of a total of 60 different ergonomic office chairs. Results showed that with the exception of seat height and armrest adjustment, only a small minority of users had accurate knowledge about the controls on their chair. Even when users correctly identified a chair control, less than 50% said they had ever used that control. There was no effect of ergonomics chair training on user perceived chair comfort. Those who had received previous training for an ergonomic chair reported less frequent musculoskeletal discomfort than those with no training or with specific training on their current. Users who sat on chairs with 3 or fewer controls reported significantly less frequent musculoskeletal discomfort than those sitting on more complex chairs with 4 or more controls. Overall, the results show that up to two thirds of users knew about their controls for adjusting seat height, seat depth and armrest height, but most users were unaware of controls for other functions. The implications for chair design are discussed.

2005

Abstract. Bodyarchitecture is a research platform for investigating different forms of natural, multimodal human-computer interaction. It involves the research and development of computer vision, speech and gesture recognition systems that connect media and ...

Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, 2018

In this paper, we argue for novel user experience design methods, in the context of reimagining ergonomics of interactive furniture. There is a need for improving both creativity and productivity at the workplace, and there is ample room for scientific advancements brought by embedded systems, sensors and actuators which can now be part of future pieces of furniture. Creative industries' workers are becoming more prominent as countries move towards intellectual-based economies. Consequently, the workplace needs to be reconfigured so that creativity and productivity can be better promoted at these spaces. This position paper presents several directions that can shed light on how we can better design interactive furniture for the workplace. In particular, we argue for a multisensorial approach as a promising way of achieving the above-mentioned goals.

Our research question is the role of body in a Ubiquitous era. To answer this question, we propose a study for the design of an innovative gestural corpus to allow a natural, simple interaction and communication in social smart space through the body. The goals of this work are 1) to examine the relation between body and space in Ubiquitous era; 2) to investigate the potential of body and senses to improve one's ability to interact with surroundings; 3) to present a study for a new gestural corpus for smart spaces, adopting a bodystorming approach. This paper introduces the general approach, describes our current statement of research and outlines the planned study design.