Cati Vaucelle [blog, Interview], Researcher in the Tangible Media Group at SFU Media Lab, is scheduled for a talk at SFU Surrey, May 2nd at 10.30 a.m. Sign up here ($25, free for SFU students + Alumni). This is going to be a really interesting event!
Vaucelle proposes a new genre of human-computer interaction: Gesture Object Interfaces. Gestures promise the potential for a person to interact with technology using her entire body and spectrum of movement, rather than being limited by the ‘traditional’ human-computer interaction paradigm of keyboard and mouse.
MIT Tangible Media Group was founded by Professor Hiroshi Ishi, and has given birth to such interesting projects as Sandscape and Tangible Query Interfaces
A project of Vaucelle’s that I’ve seen in the blogosphere before is called Jabberstamp. It allows children to augment drawings with verbal storytelling. One of her recent projects is called Picture This!, and is an exploration of gestural interaction, again with children as users. Using a setup of two small cameras, designed as doll accessories, the child enacts a story with two dolls, and the system automatically puts together an edited video using motion analysis.
While I think that she is moving in interesting territory, both with interaction for children (5+ years), and with gestural interfaces, I question why children should make videos of their play. It’s neat, and it is unique in a lot of ways, and it is exploring the creativity of children, and it has points that go beyond the direct end product, but is there any real value for the users – the children?
Play, among young children, is characterized by spontaneity. I think that interfaces for children need to be even more transparent than good, intuitive interfaces for older people, especially if the interaction relates to play. In the case of Picture This!, at least in its’ current state of development, the mental overhead of using the right gestures, placing the cameras, checking the video preview monitor, etc., as I see it, takes away from this spontaneity of play.
Another characteristic of child’s play is temporality. In play with dolls, it seems that usually a story is enacted, externalizing ideas and thoughts the child is having. But the value of this play is in the enacting itself. I can’t see the value for the children of recording the enactment – the child probably has a very limited interest in replaying the story.
That being said, I think Gestural Interfaces is going to be a major branch of interaction design in a very near future, and the subfield of augmenting child’s play is also an intriguing one.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 12:02 am and is filed under design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Thank you for the interesting research points!
Check out the Picture This! web site for your questions on children’s play and video. http://web.media.mit.edu/~cati/portfolio/PictureThis.html
Making video is different than play. When an adults catpure/digitalize/edit movies, they are not doing gardening. Well, same thing for play and video, these two activities are different. The project is not just about play and is not just about making videos, it is about a combination of the two. Because at 10 years old, kids leave hands-on play for video games, one question is how can children revisit their toys in a way closer to their attraction to video games.
One key element in the project is perspective taking. Quote: “If the toy had a visual perspective immediately accessible to the child, a new world would be opened to her. The toy could potentially bring the child into exploring visual and narrative perspectives of these character props, expanding her discovery and understanding of social interrelationships.”
It is a new genre of toys, it does not replace spontaneous play, it extends on it. User studies with young children showed that kids could spend 2 hours in making movies with and about their toys with Picture This! so in a way it passed the first usability test: kids are drawn into making movies with and about their toys.
As for a new interaction mechanism, gesture object interfaces, we are still researching on the pros and cons of such interfaces.
Also some other projects on the making of video for children by the same author: Terraria: http://web.media.mit.edu/~cati/portfolio/Terraria.html
Moving Pictures: http://web.media.mit.edu/~cati/portfolio/MovingPictures.html
See you at SFU!
Thank you for the interesting research points!
Check out the Picture This! web site for your questions on children’s play and video. http://web.media.mit.edu/~cati/portfolio/PictureThis.html
Making video is different than play. When an adults catpure/digitalize/edit movies, they are not doing gardening. Well, same thing for play and video, these two activities are different. The project is not just about play and is not just about making videos, it is about a combination of the two. Because at 10 years old, kids leave hands-on play for video games, one question is how can children revisit their toys in a way closer to their attraction to video games.
One key element in the project is perspective taking. Quote: “If the toy had a visual perspective immediately accessible to the child, a new world would be opened to her. The toy could potentially bring the child into exploring visual and narrative perspectives of these character props, expanding her discovery and understanding of social interrelationships.”
It is a new genre of toys, it does not replace spontaneous play, it extends on it. User studies with young children showed that kids could spend 2 hours in making movies with and about their toys with Picture This! so in a way it passed the first usability test: kids are drawn into making movies with and about their toys.
As for a new interaction mechanism, gesture object interfaces, we are still researching on the pros and cons of such interfaces.
Also some other projects on the making of video for children by the same author: Terraria: http://web.media.mit.edu/~cati/portfolio/Terraria.html
Moving Pictures: http://web.media.mit.edu/~cati/portfolio/MovingPictures.html
See you at SFU!
April 14th, 2008
2:08 pm
Thanks for the insight Cati! My comment relates to this:
“It is a new genre of toys, it does not replace spontaneous play, it extends on it.”
per: It is true the children’s play can be characterized by spontaneity, but I think that also draws from childrens ability to be adaptable. Children are much faster to react to their environment and objects within their environment than adults. By enabling children to have and intuitive medium that fits in their play environment, Cati is introducing a new form of creativity.
A question comes to mind: Children play at a young age and experiment with the physical environment that we have come to know as adults. Their play time informs the knowledge base that they create of their surroundings. By introducing alternate realtime perspectives that act as an extension of their gestures, how will this effect the learning process? How might it change a humans perception of the physical world that the adults of today know?
Thanks for the insight Cati! My comment relates to this:
“It is a new genre of toys, it does not replace spontaneous play, it extends on it.”
per: It is true the children’s play can be characterized by spontaneity, but I think that also draws from childrens ability to be adaptable. Children are much faster to react to their environment and objects within their environment than adults. By enabling children to have and intuitive medium that fits in their play environment, Cati is introducing a new form of creativity.
A question comes to mind: Children play at a young age and experiment with the physical environment that we have come to know as adults. Their play time informs the knowledge base that they create of their surroundings. By introducing alternate realtime perspectives that act as an extension of their gestures, how will this effect the learning process? How might it change a humans perception of the physical world that the adults of today know?
April 14th, 2008
4:31 pm
Cati, thank you for taking the time to reply to my post. I think I was a little too quick to draw conclusions about this project. Your ideas about perspective taking are really interesting.
The more I think about children as media producers, the more I think that there is potential in this. My wife told me a real story about the photographer Zana Briski, who wanted to document the life of children living in a brothel in India. To get a unique perspective, she handed them each a camera, and the result can be seen in the documentary ‘Born into Brothels’.
Here are two links to websites that celebrate the perspective of children, and children as art/media-producers: http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/home/ http://redcurrent.blogspot.com/2005/09/kids-with-cameras-through-childs-eyes.html
Re: Connor’s comment, maybe there are unexpected consequences to this, and children will start to expect all sorts of things to provide alternate perspectives and other interactive qualities, activated by gestures. :)
Cati, thank you for taking the time to reply to my post. I think I was a little too quick to draw conclusions about this project. Your ideas about perspective taking are really interesting.
The more I think about children as media producers, the more I think that there is potential in this. My wife told me a real story about the photographer Zana Briski, who wanted to document the life of children living in a brothel in India. To get a unique perspective, she handed them each a camera, and the result can be seen in the documentary ‘Born into Brothels’.
Here are two links to websites that celebrate the perspective of children, and children as art/media-producers: http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/home/ http://redcurrent.blogspot.com/2005/09/kids-with-cameras-through-childs-eyes.html
Re: Connor’s comment, maybe there are unexpected consequences to this, and children will start to expect all sorts of things to provide alternate perspectives and other interactive qualities, activated by gestures. :)
April 14th, 2008
11:30 pm
Allowing children play-time, especially with dolls (or representations of themselves and those in their environment) is essential to a child’s development, both as individuals and as members of society. Observing that play has taught us many things about early development, how ideas are formed, and even how morals and ideals can start as a sprout in a garden that thrives on external information. For years, child psychologists have used dolls and “pretend” play to give children a safe place to express troubles too painful or frightening to acknowledge in the real world. In that sense, Picture This! has taken this type of practical detachment to the next level.
In another light though, giving kids the ability to make their own movies has an exciting number of possibilities. As Cati noted, at a certain point (which seems to be starting earlier) kids abandon their dolls and pretend play for media- mostly computers and video games. Sure, you could argue that this is also a form of make-believe interaction with video game characters rather than dolls, but there’s no denying that the element of unbounded creativity in a pre-created game is significantly less than when the child’s own mind determines the next move.
Rather than reduce the level of creative ownership involved in play, why not increase it as the child gains even more understanding about his environment and becomes more adept at expressing himself. Rather than draw a mark on the timeline where dolls and toys become something only younger children play with, why not allow these older children to carry these old friends into the future with them, not as security blankets but as comrades who have helped them navigate the fields of their own development. Older kids can now understand the value of making a movie: to share a unique perspective, to be allowed to step back even further and see a bigger picture, to teach younger children something valuable, to repeat a moment in time- even a pretend one- in order to analyze that moment or to experience it differently, to be given the power to change something that is out of your control.
From a more personal point of view, I have always wanted to revisit myself as a child and gain a deeper understanding of who I am and how I came to be this way. I remember playing with toys, but the memories are too general to gain anything more than a feeling of nostalgia from. What if I could relive those moments? Would I have more appreciation for my uniqueness? My personality? My thought process? If children making movies of their play has no other value than allowing them some insight later in life, I think it is a beautiful thing.
Allowing children play-time, especially with dolls (or representations of themselves and those in their environment) is essential to a child’s development, both as individuals and as members of society. Observing that play has taught us many things about early development, how ideas are formed, and even how morals and ideals can start as a sprout in a garden that thrives on external information. For years, child psychologists have used dolls and “pretend” play to give children a safe place to express troubles too painful or frightening to acknowledge in the real world. In that sense, Picture This! has taken this type of practical detachment to the next level.
In another light though, giving kids the ability to make their own movies has an exciting number of possibilities. As Cati noted, at a certain point (which seems to be starting earlier) kids abandon their dolls and pretend play for media- mostly computers and video games. Sure, you could argue that this is also a form of make-believe interaction with video game characters rather than dolls, but there’s no denying that the element of unbounded creativity in a pre-created game is significantly less than when the child’s own mind determines the next move.
Rather than reduce the level of creative ownership involved in play, why not increase it as the child gains even more understanding about his environment and becomes more adept at expressing himself. Rather than draw a mark on the timeline where dolls and toys become something only younger children play with, why not allow these older children to carry these old friends into the future with them, not as security blankets but as comrades who have helped them navigate the fields of their own development. Older kids can now understand the value of making a movie: to share a unique perspective, to be allowed to step back even further and see a bigger picture, to teach younger children something valuable, to repeat a moment in time- even a pretend one- in order to analyze that moment or to experience it differently, to be given the power to change something that is out of your control.
From a more personal point of view, I have always wanted to revisit myself as a child and gain a deeper understanding of who I am and how I came to be this way. I remember playing with toys, but the memories are too general to gain anything more than a feeling of nostalgia from. What if I could relive those moments? Would I have more appreciation for my uniqueness? My personality? My thought process? If children making movies of their play has no other value than allowing them some insight later in life, I think it is a beautiful thing.
April 15th, 2008
2:10 am
I told my roommate about Picture This, and she had a comment: has any thought been given to the potential that playing with Picture This! can get kids thinking about media production as such, the way e.g. commercials are edited to promote a certain message?
I think it’s important to teach our children to not be passive media consumers, but adopt a critical mind to all broadcast messages. It’s through media that the reality of western culture is being reproduced – and western lifestyles are not sustainable.
I told my roommate about Picture This, and she had a comment: has any thought been given to the potential that playing with Picture This! can get kids thinking about media production as such, the way e.g. commercials are edited to promote a certain message?
I think it’s important to teach our children to not be passive media consumers, but adopt a critical mind to all broadcast messages. It’s through media that the reality of western culture is being reproduced – and western lifestyles are not sustainable.
April 18th, 2008
7:45 pm
Jabberstamp is pretty incredible. I think it show a lot of insight into the way kids play (i remember making lots of sound effects and telling stories about my drawings as a kid; drawing was a very social activity in those days). But also i think this could be a great tool for adults. It could be really useful for mind mapping and any other activity where you might want to annotate a physical drawing or text with sounds and/or vocal comments.
Jabberstamp is pretty incredible. I think it show a lot of insight into the way kids play (i remember making lots of sound effects and telling stories about my drawings as a kid; drawing was a very social activity in those days). But also i think this could be a great tool for adults. It could be really useful for mind mapping and any other activity where you might want to annotate a physical drawing or text with sounds and/or vocal comments.
May 2nd, 2008
12:56 am
Jabberstamp as a brainstorming tool.. imagine making a sketch, and later being able to point to that sketch and replay the audible commentary. Could be useful for remembering what track you were on before you got to a certain point – helping you branch off from an idea at an earlier point (herring bone model).
I think that augmenting physical objects with digital properties, if it’s done seamlessly and meaningfully, has quite limitless potential. Durrell Bishop’s Marble answering machine and physical icons representing computer files come to mind.
Picture This! is really a seamless augmentation of an activity (play + externalizing thoughts through taking a doll’s perspective), rather than a physical object.
Jabberstamp as a brainstorming tool.. imagine making a sketch, and later being able to point to that sketch and replay the audible commentary. Could be useful for remembering what track you were on before you got to a certain point – helping you branch off from an idea at an earlier point (herring bone model).
I think that augmenting physical objects with digital properties, if it’s done seamlessly and meaningfully, has quite limitless potential. Durrell Bishop’s Marble answering machine and physical icons representing computer files come to mind.
Picture This! is really a seamless augmentation of an activity (play + externalizing thoughts through taking a doll’s perspective), rather than a physical object.
May 2nd, 2008
4:12 pm