Digital tangible interfaces have long presented interactive stories. Research often highlights interface novelty over tangible interfaces as a storytelling language. This pictorial reflects on the design of “Letters to José,” a tangible narrative from a three-year research project. Situated between tangible interaction and interactive storytelling, it examines the relationships between artifacts, body, and space in supporting narrative. The outcome is an annotated visual typology of storytelling artifacts within tangible narrative, serving as a design category and toolbox.

This clip explores a model for interactive narratives centred on physical manipulation, integrating multimodality and tangible interaction. Using Research through Design aims to build knowledge and theory through iterative design, suggesting considerations for the design of interactive narratives, particularly through the lens of multimodality to foster its examination in design, interaction, and narrativity.

This paper examines student work from design courses at Zayed University in Dubai, where empathetic design guided the creation of technology-based solutions like apps and gadgets. Projects were categorized by their approach to empathy: through game mechanics, business models, or digital companions, based on two years of student submissions. The presented work demonstrates that project-based learning and empathetic design enable students to develop complex, user-centered strategies. The paper discusses these outcomes and the implications of students becoming technology creators rather than just consumers.

This presentation offers a design perspective on the human hand’s evolutionary significance and its impact on HCI over the last 50 years. It introduces a hand-centric grid, proportionally based on anthropometric and morphological hand studies. This grid, part of ongoing tangible user interface and collaborative environment research, was presented at ISA2016 on November 3rd, 2016.

This research details an interface design exploring three levels of physical gestures (finger, hand, arm) to trigger user interactions. These gestures control interactions and enhance learning content, from accessing web information (Google, Wikipedia) to sharing documents and using virtual classroom tools (post-its, markers). Initial classroom demonstrations, outcomes, and interface design insights are presented.

This workshop explored using Deconstructive discourse for design ideation. Structuralism links signifiers (words) to signifieds (meanings) through opposition (a “car” is not other things). Deconstruction challenges this direct link, arguing signifiers refer to other signifiers, not fixed meanings (e.g., “India” evokes “Taj Mahal,” “elephant”). Language is a network of linked signifiers. Deconstruction generates new meaning by forging new connections between them.

Multidisciplinary interaction fosters design innovation (Design Council, 2010). This paper presents a 2011-2012 pilot project at Colegiatura Colombiana that fostered relationships between design students from diverse programs (beyond Graphic Design to include Advertising, Fashion, Spatial Design, Communication, and even Gastronomy). The paper documents this approach for institutions seeking to enable multidisciplinary design solutions.