Inspirational patterns for embodied interaction

Abstract

The concern of this work is how knowledge based on design experience can be developed, disseminated, ar- ticulated and acquired. We propose the notion of in- spirational patterns, or i-patterns, which refers to abstractions of core ideas and essential elements from a class of coherent examples, pointing to promising re- gions in the design space. Most current work on pat- terns concentrates on proven solutions to recurring problems; i-patterns, on the other hand, are oriented towards the innovative and inspirational. The design domain of interest to us is interaction design, which can be roughly defined as design with digital materials. More specifically, we focus on the in- tersection of tangible interfaces and social computing that is called embodied interaction. The article pres- ents nine i-patterns for embodied interaction, including »Virtual information is tied to positions in the material world« and »Heterogeneous virtual information fuses into a few sensory parameters.«