In the design of the interactive elements of Sniff, Sara had to use visual diagramming as a way of exploring, understanding and prototyping with non-visual feedback such as sound and vibration (haptics).
Sara developed a speech bubble approach to annotating physical objects, so that they look like they are ‘saying’ the audio and haptic feedback.
The representation of sound and vibration uses waveforms, showing amplitude over time. Although this is quite limited, it seems to be a useful shorthand for communicating a small range of tangible feedback.
After two years of development, many awards and publications, we have finally given Sara Johanssons’s Sniff the proper communication it deserves.
Sniff is first and foremost a high-quality physical toy dog, that can withstand the rough and tumble of everyday play and activities. But Sniff’s interactive elements add an extra dimension of experience and engagement. Through the use of Radio Frequency IDentification technology Sniff can identify objects that he comes close to, which trigger behaviours that are expressed through sound and vibration. In the Sniff video above you can see three of Sniff’s ‘activities’ in action, in real settings.
Sniff is designed as a companion in daily situations as well as in play and games, alone or together with other children, and including one or more Sniffs. Special attention has been devoted to the design of interaction between sound and vibration. Auditory feedback is important for the sociality of the toy, and makes it possible for a larger number of people to participate in play. Haptic feedback deepens the experience, support hands-on operation and creates a special bond between user and toy.
Sniff is a robust and fully working prototype that has been through several iterations it its physical design, interaction design and technology. This has happened as part of a long evaluation process where it has been tested with many kids and adults.
Book, website and paper
The Sniff website goes further into some of the design and conceptual issues, as well as background material and references.
Sara Johansson presented some of the background and research behind Sniff at The Interaction design and children conference in June 2009. Here is the paper that goes deeper into the design issues particularly issues of abstraction in character and interaction design.
Finally there is also a lovely book available to buy. The book is presented as a ‘day in the life of Sniff’ and details many of the interactive, playful concepts that have been designed.
It is great when a project is not just just well received, but thoroughly understood and appreciated for the underlying reasons it was made. The purpose of making the film was to introduce the ‘magic of proximity’ which is largely left out of the discourse around RFID. The film attempts to communicate the delicate and subtle aspects of a rather obscure technology, so we were pleasantly surprised by the engaged, thoughtful and broad discussions that it has initiated.
Adam Greenfield was one of the first people to pick up on the intertwined concept and aesthetics:
“What really gets me about it is the fusion of technical insight, aesthetic sense, skill in execution and sheer patience it represents. If every made thing in the world were even one-twentieth as carefully thought out as the most offhanded gesture here, we’d all of us be in inestimably better shape.”
While Lisa Smith at Core77 immediately saw the way in which the film explores RFID from a new direction:
“The video very sensitively explores the physical implications of proximity, using RFID for much more than identification.”
“Nearness takes the Fischli & Weiss concept further though as it explores how modern day interactive technologies (RFID) with the use of proximity detection make “touching” redundant. It’s an original modern day version of a masterpiece.”
We have always framed the film through a vivid memory of our first viewing of Der Lauf Der Dinge. But a cultural reference that emerged very quickly was Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg. The Goldberg reference in particular stuck in many discussions, where the relative merits of physical versus virtual interactions were argued out. On Boingboing some commenters disparagingly described Nearness as the “Phantom Menace of Rube Goldbergs”, while another commenter thought the electronic aspect added a contemporary twist:
“The fact that it is entitled “Nearness” and each interface is from indirect interaction elevates this from science project to art for me.”
Guybrush over at Warrenellis.com has an amusing take on RFID chain reactions that manages to take RFID paranoia to new heights:
“Would be funnier with one of the new Barclaycards: swap your card to pay for groceries, see how thieves invisibly get your number, print a cloned card which is then used to access your bank account and to transfer all your money to Russia, where mafia associates can use it right away to pay for a plasma tv on the web which is then delivered to them in a few minutes. Closing shot of smiling Putin-lookalike turning on the tv by remote control.”
One of the essential properties of Near Field Communication is nearness, but this is set against one of the paradoxes of touch-based interaction where, in fact, nothing needs to touch. In a very short film made with BERG, we explore nearness in interactive technologies.
What is especially lovely is the way in which the images from our paper are carefully interpreted and annotated visually with notes and explanations. In many ways it communicates better than the original paper.
And on that note, Nicolas Nova also has a good writeup here.
Touch has an exhibition at Nordes’09 Engaging Artifacts that is taking place at AHO from Sunday 30th August until Wednesday 2 September 2009. Nordes is the Nordic Design Research Conference and this event brings together designers and researchers under the theme of “Engaging artefacts”.
Today has been spent setting up the exhibition space, which consists of three interactive installations that show various aspects of Touch design, innovation and research work including Anne Galloway’s Re/touch and many of the Touch design projects.
The exhibition itself is free to the public, so if you are in Oslo please drop by, and there will be more on the exhibition here next week.
Last week Gartner released their hype cycle for technologies in 2009, and what do we find at the very bottom of the trough of disillusionment?
The hype and doom predictions around RFID and NFC have been fun to watch, but we’re happy to be working with a technology that is now mature and cheap enough to be useful. (We disagree with ReadWriteWeb that it is fear of RFID that is potentially killing Violet, more like a lack of compelling user-experience).
This is a video prototype of an iPhone media player that uses physical objects to control media playback. It is based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) that triggers various iPhone interactions when in the range of a wireless tag embedded inside a physical object.
RFID is becoming more common in mobile phones (under the term Near Field Communication or NFC) from manufacturers such as Nokia. By looking at Apple’s patents we know that the technology is being considered for the iPhone. With the iPhone SDK 3.0 external hardware accessories can be accessed by iPhone software, so third party RFID or NFC readers are also possible.
So what kinds of applications would emerge if an iPhone had an NFC reader? Here we have prototyped a simple media player, which triggers the playback of content on the touch of a tag, and created a set of augmented objects that have relationships to different kinds of audiovisual content.
A lens for media
Compared to other mobile handsets the iPhone is a particularly media-friendly device, with a large, bright screen and high quality audiovisual playback. What if this screen could act as a ‘lens’ to content that resides in the world?
In a screen-based interface content may be buried many levels deep inside an information architecture. But in a physical RFID-driven interface a simple gesture can offer quick and direct access to content. Physical objects afford tangible manipulation that screens cannot, and this is great for playful products. Our Bowl prototype showed a natural blending of media consumption and playful activitiy in children, where media viewing became less passive and a more active experience.
In this video demo, the objects have been chosen to physically or visually represent the content. There are some obvious relationships, such as the Moomin figure leading to a favourite episode of a Moomin animation. The less obvious relationships such as the wooden house leading to home videos were chosen because they just somehow felt right. In fact the exact relationship may be of secondary importance, as over time the behaviour of the physical and digital objects becomes known and transparent through exploration and repetition.
Some of the objects felt particularly satisfying. The Make Podcast object for instance—where touching the ‘geek’ plays the latest ‘Weekend project’— shows how an object can be used for exploring a dynamic stream of content.
Going further
This video prototype is basic and intended to open up for discussion and new exploration around the experience of media selection through physical objects. At the moment the interaction is a trigger, but what if the phone doesn’t just react as output but also as input to physical objects? How do we programme and manage our sets of media and applications in these objects?
Overall this points towards opportunities around the distribution of media through physical objects, it is an example of general ideas around an ‘internet of things’ or ‘spimes’ applied to the world of media. What opportunities would the distribution of RFID-embedded products open up in terms of media, gaming, services and marketing? What does this mean for the future of products?
Touch is a research project that investigates Near Field Communication (NFC), a technology that enables connections between mobile phones and physical things. We are developing applications and services that enable people to interact with everyday objects and situations through their mobile devices. More...
