Paper Reading #15: Madgets: Actuating Widgets on Interactive Tabletops

References
Madgets: Actuating Widgets on Interactive Tabletops by Malte Weiss, Florian Schwarz, Simon Jakubowski, and Jan Borchers.  Published in UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology.


Author Bios

• Malte Weiss is currently a PhD student at the Media Computing Group of RWTH Aachen University.  His research focuses on interactive surfaces and tangible user interfaces.
• Florian Schwarz is currently an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania.  He holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Massachusetts.
• Simon Jakubowski is currently a Research Scientist at AlphaFix and spent time as a research scientist at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston.  
• Jan Borchers is currently a professor of computer science at RWTH Aachen University.  He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Darmstadt University of Technology. 

Summary
Hypothesis

• The interactive tabletop that uses "Madgets" is an improvement over currently existing similar technologies because it can enable interaction with and actuation of complex physical controls and is easy to control, low-cost, and does not require any built-in electronics or power sources for actuation or tracking.

Methods

• The main goals when designing Madgets were flexibility, lightweight, and easy to build.  The display is a 24" monitor and the actuation is controlled by an array of electromagnets and an Arduino board.  Sensing is done through visual tracking and the widget controls are made of transparent acrylic.  The algorithm to control movement, orientation, and configuration of complex controls must be aware of the physical properties of each and can compute the path leading from the current to the target position.  

Results

• The system provides a platform for rapid prototyping of medium fidelity prototypes.  Creating a new widget can take less than an hour, the tracking and actuation are maintained by simply gluing respective markers to the control, and registering new controls takes about two hours.  Their system suggests performing more iterations on medium fidelity prototypes, which makes for cheaper and easier hardware design.

Contents

• After a brief explanation of why this approach is beneficial and unique when compared to existing technology, the paper launches a full-out description of all of the ins and outs of the actual system.  It describes the physical makeup, the sensing controls, the motion algorithm, and the widget actuation and interaction with its environment.

Discussion
I am convinced that the researchers put together an effective system, but it seems like they fell just a little short of making it truly rapid prototyping kit.  After all, it takes several hours to get a new widget fully created and integrated into the system.  I was also rather disappointed by the lack of user study and feedback that has been so characteristic of the other papers we've read thus far.  I hope that in the future, in addition to the improvements outlined in the paper, they will focus a little more on how the average user might react.