Alternative Interaction Devices

From HorizonMuseum

2008 Horizon.Museum List Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less Collection, Digital Asset, and Content Management Systems Mobile Devices Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years Geolocation Alternative Interaction Devices Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years Open Content / Open Educational Resources Multi-Language Capabilities Critical Challenges Key Trends

Time-to-Adoption: Two to Three Years

Alternative interaction devices aren't particularly new: they have a long history in research environments, in Hollywood, in the gaming world, and indeed in the design of household objects and architecture. The appeal of breaking beyond the traditional inputs of a keyboard, mouse, and screen to interact with computers and other technology is enormous, and talented developers imagine a technologically ubiquitous world in which anything and everything may have digital meaning. The objects you handle every day, the environment in which you exist, and your every movement, gaze, or gesture all create opportunities for interactions and information flow.

The technologies that make all of this possible are now reaching a critical mass. Experiments and advances in RFID, specialized sensors, tangible object interfaces, vision processing, and multi-touch environments are being commoditized. What once took a significant corporate investment in hardware and development is now available as a turnkey solution (Microsoft Surface) or your new mobile phone (iPhone). The marketplace is already demonstrating the success of alternative interaction techniques and ideas, and a growing population has integrated such devices and their technologies into normal daily interactions.

This suite of technologies as a whole presents an interesting opportunity for museums. In public exhibitions, museums tell stories, convey ideas, and present objects. Rather than focusing on the technologies that may restrict what's possible, museums can now explicitly concentrate on developing the ideal experience and interaction with content. The technologies also take advantage of the entire museum environment rather than restricting the presentation of information to the overlooked kiosk in the corner of the gallery. Even more importantly, the cost of these new technologies is low enough that museums can experiment and repurpose in ways that were not previously imaginable or possible.

Examples

• Naviku system - Artisima Lingotto YouTube video of gesture interface for browsing a museum collection

• The University of Southern California and the Museum of Science in Boston are developing life-sized, 3-D Virtual Humans that will interact with visitors as interpretive guides and learning facilitators at science exhibits. http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0813541 and http://ict.usc.edu/projects/virtual_humans

• Augmented and Mixed Reality exhibitions have been and are being developed in multiple location. Water's Journey, a mixed-reality exhibition is under development at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Ft. Lauderdale. ARIEL, an augmented and virtual reality exhibit is under development at the Franklin Institute. http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0638977 and http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0741659

• The Winston Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms, Imperial War Museum, London - Churchill Lifeline interactive table - 50-feet in length, accommodating up to 26 simultaneous users, inaugurated in 2005 - a landmark, breakthrough usage developed by Small Design [1]

• The National World War I Museum in Kansas City - Second Story builds on the Churchill table and seems to take it further with two 26-foot Great War tables. See demo video at [2]

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For Further Reading

• Samsung expects affordable medium to large OLED displays in 2009 / 2010 (Engadget)

• Being Human: Human-Computer Interaction in the Year 2020 (Microsoft Rsearch) On March 15-16, 2007, a forum entitled HCI 2020: Human Values in a Digital Age, was held in Sanlúcar la Mayor, Spain, just outside Seville. Its purpose was to gather luminaries in computing, design, social sciences, and scientific philosophy to discuss, debate and help formulate an agenda for human-computer interaction (HCI) over the next decade and beyond.

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