Kris pointed me to an interesting CHI 2008 paper: Reality-Based Interaction: A Framework for Post-WIMP Interfaces by R.J.K. Jacob, A. Girouard, L.M. Hirshfield, M.S. Horn, O. Shaer, E.S. Treacy, and J. Zigelbaum.
Abstract:
We are in the midst of an explosion of emerging human-computer interaction techniques that redefine our understanding of both computers and interaction. We propose the notion of Reality-Based Interaction (RBI) as a unifying concept that ties together a large subset of these emerging interaction styles. Based on this concept of RBI we provide a framework that can be used to understand, compare, and relate current paths of recent HCI research as well as to analyze specific interaction designs. We believe that viewing interaction through the lens of RBI offers both explanatory and generative power. It provides insights for design, uncovers gaps or opportunities for future research, and leads to the development of improved evaluation techniques.
The paper discusses amongst others the results of a CHI 2006 workshop on the next generation of HCI. The authors provide a framework for classifying, comparing and evaluating new interaction styles. The framework concentrates on four themes used in these emerging interaction styles:
- Naïve Physics: people have common sense knowledge about the physical world.
- Body Awareness & Skills: people have an awareness of their own physical bodies and possess skills for controlling and coordinating their bodies.
- Environment Awareness & Skills: people have a sense of their surroundings and possess skills for negotiating, manipulating, and navigating within their environment.
- Social Awareness & Skills: people are generally aware of others in their environment and have skills for interacting with them.
These four themes are clarified by the accompanying picture:
The workshop proceedings should be interesting as well, with an impressive list of participants (amongst others Hiroshi Ishii, Ben Shneiderman, Steven Feiner, George Fitzmaurice, Desney Tan, Brygg Ullmer and Andy Wilson).
This framework can be useful to evaluate the “intuitiveness” of new interaction methods by measuring the extent to which they use knowledge and skills from the real world.
