From Function to Pleasure : Touch, Interaction and the Interspace

ABSTRACT
Tactile and haptic interaction is everywhere these days, and meant to become even more present in the years to come. Haptic devices are intuitive and have considerably increased the level of pleasure for users. However, some recent articles [Norman, 2010] underline the lack of reliability of gestural interfaces in terms of function. Weaving from phenomenology, architectural theory and the works of James J. Gibson [1966] and David Katz [1925] on tactile perception, this essay argues that in tactile devices as they are designed today, the sense of touch is used mostly as a replacement of artificial tools, and restricted to the hand only a mechanical approach which overrides the most powerful affordances of haptics. It claims that electronic products struggle to unveil the full potential of tactile interaction because, even though touch is used, the design strategy remains a visual one, and suggests that if we develop a tactile strategy instead, we will create deeper aesthetic experiences and increase pleasure for the users. Normans articles have the merit to raise important questions and tackle the current uncritical tactile obsession. However, they seem to miss the real issues. If, as he claims, efficiency is preferable to pleasure, then why are users choosing pleasure? Why are we willing to pay (a lot) more and learn to use new devices that are less functional than the ones we are already accustomed to? If natural interfaces are not natural, as Norman claims, why do we like them so much and adopt them so easily? Since tangible interfaces are not that efficient, how come they are so pleasurable? And, importantly: will they remain as pleasurable once they have become fully functional? Answers to these questions are multiple and complex. Profound motivations lie behind the tactile craze; motivations that, I will argue, are linked to the specific properties of touch as a sense which are fundamentally different from those of vision and that this will be the main argument of this paper are not directly addressed in most of today's haptic devices.

Categories and Subject Descriptors

A.0 [GENERAL]: Conference Proceedings H.5.2: User interfaces. Haptic I/O, Input devices and strategies, Interaction styles, User-centered design, Theory and Methods, H.5.4: Hypertext/Hypermedia. Theory.

2.

THE TWO SIDES OF TOUCH

General Terms
Design, Theory

Keywords
touch, haptics, interaction, design strategy, experience, space.

In a 1996 article, Cathryn Vasseleu, following Levinas, underlines two seemingly contradictory aspects of touch, a sense that is at once a responsive and indefinable affection, a sense of being touched as being moved and also touching as a sense of grasping, as an objective sense of things, conveyed through the skin. While the first aspect implies a form of openness being touched as being moved, the second expresses the making of a connection, as the age-old dream of re-appropriation, autonomy and mastery, and is defined in terms of vision. According to the author, only the first one can be considered truly tactile, the second being assimilated to the visual. These two sides of touch convey two very different types of experience, and, importantly, set the stage for very different types of power struggles. If we analyze the way the sense of touch is used in today's tactile devices, we observe that in most cases touch is a means for command execution; we use our hands and fingers as a replacement of mouses and keyboards, for pointing and clicking at things i.e in terms of power and control, in other words in the visual manner. My argument is that if we develop a genuinely tactile strategy for interaction one that reaches beyond mastery and control towards a situation of active perception we will create objects that are both pleasurable and reliable, and that such tactile strategy is the key to achieving Mark Weiser's old promise of calm technology. Let's see why. Many philosophers, starting as far back as Aristotle, have stressed the importance and uniqueness of touch. It is through touch that we first become aware of who we are through touch, we separate what is me from what is not me. At the same time, and somehow paradoxically, a form of psychic fusion takes place for its impossible, within the act of touching, to set apart a touching subject from a touched object, both parts playing both roles simultaneously. Thus, trough touch, we achieve at once both individuation and connection.

1.

INTRODUCTION

In two recent articles, Don Norman [2010] refers to gestural interfaces as a step backwards in interaction design. From Norman's perspective, todays tactile devices do not comply with basic usability and interaction requirements. He points out the inconsistency between different systems, scalability problems, difficulty to learn, lack of feedback, and unpredictable outcomes, among other problematic points. He argues that even though this new type of device requires novel interaction methods, designers and manufacturers should conduct their research from established HCI findings of proven reliability instead of random exploration and improvisation. Throughout the two articles, he suggests that even though tactile devices can be a pleasure to use and a pleasure to see, they're not really efficient; and that tactile interaction design should not sacrifice efficiency to pleasure hence suggesting, as the eloquent title says, that tactile interfaces as they are today are a mislead. He analyzes the history of graphic user interfaces to claim that, just as it happened with with them, tactile ones will need to go through a lot of rethinking before they become truly efficient.

How does this happen? An important element seems to be the intrinsically dynamic nature of touch : no other sense engages feeling and doing simultaneously [Bloomer & Moore, 1977]. Engaging feeling and doing simultaneously implies an active form of perception that is different from a passive reception of stimuli. The two most authoritative works on tactual perception to this day, David Katzs Der Aufbau der Tastwelt [1925] and James J. Gibsons The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems [1966] emphasize this inherent dynamism of touch and its relation to power : in active touch, stimulation is obtained rather than imposed. Even though in all sensual activity both passiveness and action are present, in touch, the second is paramount. Another key concept is the primacy of touch as a sense. It precedes and informs all the others; stimuli are first interpreted in terms of touch : The body image [...] is formed fundamentally from haptic and orienting experiences early in life. Our visual images are developed later on [...]. Thus haptic experiences which include the entire body give fundamental meanings to visual experiences, while visual experiences serve to communicate those meanings back to the body [Bloomer and Moore 1977]. An important clue to keep in mind is that, while in vision perception is mediated by light, in touch there is no mediation. When we design for touch, we directly address the core of human identity, reaching intimacy with the user. The dialectics between the senses, and between touch and vision in particular, need to be further explored in design projects; unexpected opportunities lie on their appropriate articulation a research field that is only at is infancy. Significantly, it has been found that, in terms of power, vision overrides touch; this phenomenon is known as visual capture of touch, and it can be resumed as follows: when vision and touch conflict, as when a person wears distorting goggles, vision dominates touch. When the conflict is prolonged, touch [...], not vision, adapts so as to eliminate the conflict [Krueger, 1982]. If we connect all these ideas, it becomes clear that the uniqueness of touch doesn't come from notions of power, or control attributes that naturally belong to the realm of vision but lies instead in a connection to a sense of self that is enhanced when touch is involved. Designing for touch implies a call to action on the participant; this notion, however, needs to be understood not at a primary level i. e. in the sense of direct command of the device but rather, encourage designers to focus on an underlying dimension of touch that speaks to the periphery and conveys feelings of well-being. Design for touch should aim for a nonalienating, unmechanized type of experience in which the user remains self centered much of what Mark Waiser was aiming for.

object itself and its surface features without regard for context, and instead, learn to design for the periphery so that we can most fully command technology without being dominated by it. Weiser defines the periphery as the part of the perceived world that we are not directly focusing on at a particular moment; (depending on what we are precisely thinking of, we could also call it context, or background). According to the author, the periphery plays an essential role in calm: it subtly keeps us aware of changes in the environment, without occupying the center of our attention. This enables fluid transitions between perceptions, allowing us to adjust to change and therefore remain stable through it. Thats why, when we design for the periphery, we create calm technology. The connection between touch and the periphery is perhaps best illustrated by the way we perceive built architecture. In The Work of Art at the Age of Mechanical Reproduction [1936], Walter Benjamin refers to it in the following terms: Buildings are appropriated in a twofold manner: by use and by perception or rather, by touch and sight. Such appropriation cannot be understood in terms of the attentive concentration of a tourist before a famous building. On the tactile side there is no counterpart to contemplation on the optical side. Tactile appropriation is accomplished not so much by attention as by habit. As regards architecture, habit determines to a large extent even optical reception. To resume: if we need to design for the periphery in order to create calm technology; and if touch is the key to addressing the periphery, then touch is the key to creating calm technology. But not just any touch; in Vasseleu's words, not touching as a sense of grasping the visual-functional approach of touch that we most often see on haptic devices today but touch as a responsive and indefinable affection, a sense of being touched as being moved.

4. FROM DOMESTIC ROBOCOP TO SENSUAL INTERFACES

How is this double-sided nature of touch addressed within the context of industrial products? Two short anticipation films will help illustrate the two approaches. The first one, Domestic Robocop [2010] by Keiichi Matsuda, is an animated movie that shows a vision of an augmented future in which media has completely saturated the physical world. All direct bodily contact with objects has disappeared, and we find instead a visual representation of the hands which, quite paradoxically, conveys an impression of vintage imagery, as if it was a simulacrum of what humans once used to do. Deprived from direct contact, the hands seem altogether useless within this context. While this film was made to illustrate the potential of augmented reality in tomorrow's architecture, it ironically leaves us with a feeling of uncomfort and frustration. Why? I believe this to be due to the visual approach of touch displayed throughout the animation. In Domestic Robocop, the body is used as the images control panel it serves to make the system work, activating the different variations and possibilities of the film that is being shown. Attention is focused on what the image does or does not do, following a pre-determined program which pushes the user to carry through a particular, directly functional sequence of movements. Instead of feeling natural, the overall impression is rather mechanical, even though the system is supposed to be based in spontaneous gestures. Whether such quality is actually a

3.

TOUCH AND THE PERIPHERY

Let's briefly discuss Mark Weiser's concept of Calm technology. Weiser's theories have usually been interpreted in the form of disappearing computers; an approach which basically claims for transparent interfaces in which technology is not apparent. I would like to take another direction, and discuss instead how it relates to the sense of touch. In his canonical essay The Computer for the Twenty-First Century [1991], Waiser points out the risk of technology leading us to a world in which electronic devices get in the way of a rich experience of life. To overcome this state of things, he stresses the necessity of abandoning superficial design which focuses on the

pleasant one the kind that we want our everyday experiences to be made of in the future is something that is not often questioned.

previous paragraphs I discussed the role of touch from the participant's perspective. Lets now see how the space itself is transformed in very different manners depending on whether the approach is tactile or visual. Interspaces are, above all, space events; and its through the haptic sense that experiences of space are shaped [Bloomer and Moore, 1977]. This an important clue to keep in mind because many interspaces today are designed using what I called earlier the visual approach a way of designing inherited from the visual culture, which considers the installation either as a living movie or a living picture, and reduces the hosting space to a surface, a screen. When the piece is designed from this point of view, elements whitin the built environment that don't enforce the screen effect in other words, tactile characteristics such as texture and relief must either be ignored, neutralized or suppressed. If we compare the spatial experience before and after the intervention, we realize that we have lost a dimension: what was originally three dimensional (a space) has become two dimensional (a screen); instead of being augmented the experience of physical space has been impoverished. Extreme examples of this can be found in virtual reality devices where, through special equipment (gloves, glasses, immersive rooms) the body landmarks are neutralized and immersion is achieved through the phenomenon of visual capture of touch described earlier. The experience of immersion is not achieved from the participant's own sensorial landmarks; a form of alienation takes place. The loss is not only of sensorial stimuli but, importantly, also of identity and consciousness, and the overall impression is that of superficial excitement rather of that of a true aesthetic experience. The expansion of our actual identity requires greater recognition of our sense of internal space as well as of the space around our bodies. Certainly if we continue to focus radically on external and novel experiences and on the sights and sounds deliverd to us from the environment, to the exclusion of renewing and expanding our primordial haptic experiences, we risk diminishing access to a wealth of sensual detail developed within ourselves our feelings of rythm, of hard and soft edges, of huge and tiny elements, of openings and closures, and a myriad of landmarks and directions which, if taken together, form the core of our human identity. [Ibid]. If we want to create meaningful space experiences through digital technologies in a way that takes full advantage of the unique possibilities offered by this new medium instead of relying solely on the grammar of previous languages, we need to deploy a tactile strategy. This means, envisioning interspaces in which space no longer appears to be a vacuum in which solid bodies live, but rather a medium through which information is diffused [Prestinenza Puglisi, 2005, p.20]. Such envisioning may take many forms and produce many different visual styles of outcomes; what counts is that the tactile material is considered as a starting point. In other words: engaging the tactile side of touch is key to generating a sense of immersion that does not rely on the alienation of the participant's own sensorial apparatus to the benefit of a pre-determined experience, but, instead, enhances it, thus producing a sense of fusion with the piece. To better grasp how this happens we can think of the example of a steam bath, where due to the high temperature and the humidity of the air, it becomes difficult to delimit where the person's body ends and the steam begins a truly fusional experience, achieved

Figure 1. Images from Domestic Robocop (2010) by Keiichi Matsuda. Photo Keiichi Matsuda. The second example comes from Chris Woebken's Nanofutures: Sensual Interfaces [2007]. The film, which was a part of the Design an the Elastic Mind exhibition at New York's MoMA Museum in 2008, illustrates an exploration of possible uses of nanotechnology beyond their primary functional capabilities, such as increasing the strenght of materials or reducing weight. It shows an office worker interacting with his desktop computer through an interface that is actually made of blocks of seeds. The user breaks the blocks apart, spreads the seeds, pushes them around, plays with them. While the seed interface is there to fulfill a functional goal sharing, breaking, mining data it is the sensual quality of the manipulations that literally strikes the viewer; and it's very easy to see how, beyond function, one would carry through such manipulations just for pleasure. While Woebken's project argument focuses mainly on the possibilities of organic electronics as such, the underlying message that this video makes us realize is that, beyond function, touch can radically change the way we use electronic devices, opening up new possibilities for sensual and poetic designs through interactions that not only generate new behaviors but also redefine our relationship with products [Woebken, 2007].

Figure 2. Images from Nanofutures: Sensual Interfaces (2007) by Chris Woebken. Photo Chris Woebken

5. TOUCH, VISION AND THE INTERSPACE

With the development of ubiquitous computing, traditional conceptions of space have been shaken. Our environments have become sensitive, and they change in real time in response to our actions. New spatial forms, partially made of images, emerge: interactive installations, augmented spaces, virtual reality settings, to name just a few. Beyond technological considerations, the common ground between all of them is that they constitute a new kind of place, neither fully solid nor entirely digital, which I will call interspace. Whithin interspaces, participants manipulate images with their whole body. It is clear, though, that there are many ways to address the body, and that different ways will produce different effects, some of which are pleasurable, and others that are not. In

through the skin. Getting back to the context of design: if we think of an installation where images are projected onto the built space, for instance, the particular quality of the air, hot a full of photons, generates sensations that are determinant for the final aesthetic experience. Strangely enough, simple considerations such as this one are seldom acknowledged in design processes that remain over-dominated by vision. A good exception can be found in Morel's panorama, a 2007 piece by japanese artist Mazaki Fujihata. In this installation, inspired by a masterpiece of fantastic literature, the artist successfully conveys a feeling of strangeness using the reflection of light on white walls. Cylindrical images are projected at the back of a white room; while the images are projected, a voice reads a text (the original short novel by Adolfo Bioy Casares). While the images and sounds are an essential in the piece's narrative, the feeling of strangeness is achieved mostly through the sole reflection of light which, when bounced onto the white walls, litterally fills the room. Seen from this perspective, one can easily imagine how much weaker the experience would have been if the projection room was black instead in other words, if the piece had been designed from a visual approach.

Through the opposition between what I have called visual and tactile approaches, I have aimed to show how the most powerful affordances of touch as a sense are yet to be explored, and lie on its potential for addressing the periphery. Only through full understanding of this notion shall we start foreseeing how tangible objects can, beyond function, open up new ways of relating to the material environment and bring poetry and pleasure into everyday life.

7.

REFERENCES

[1] Benjamin W. 1936. Art at the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Retrieved October 1st, 2009 from http://design.wishiewashie.com [2] Boomer, K. C., & Moore, C. W. 1977. Body, Memory and Architecture. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. [3] Gibson, J.J. 1966. The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Houghton Mifflin, Boston. [4] Katz, D. 1966. Der Aufbau der Tastwelt. Zeitschrift fr Psychologie. Ergnzungsband 11. [5] Krueger, L.E. 1982. Tactual perception in historical perspective: David Katzs world oftouch, in W. Schiff and E. Foulke (Ed.), Tactual Perception, a sourcebook, Cambridge University Press, NY, pp.1-54.. [6] Norman, D.A. 2010. Natural User Interfaces Are Not Natural. Interactions XVII, 3 (May/June 2010). [7] Norman, D. A. & Neilsen, J. 2010. Gestural Interfaces: A Step Backwards in Usability. Interactions XVII, 5 (September/October 2010). [8] Prestinenza Puglisi, L. 2005. Hyperarchitecture: Spaces in the Electronic Age, Birkhauser, Basel. [9] Vasseleu, C. 1996. Touch, Digital Technology and the Ticklish, in Touch, Artspace, Sydney, pp. 7-12. [10] Weiser, M. 1991. The Computer for the Twenty-First Century. Scientific American, September 1991. 94-100. [11] Woebken, C. 2007. New Sensual Interfaces. Retrieved February 2010 from http://www.chriswoebken.com/nano_project.html.

Figure 3. Images from Morel Panorama (2007) by Mazaki Fujihata. Photo The author.

6.

CONCLUSION

Tactile interaction and haptic interfaces are opening up new ways of understanding interaction; ways that dramatically transform not only our relationship with spaces and objects but, importantly, the very notion of function. However, the potential of touch as an agent of such transformation has not yet been fully understood, and most tangible devices today are designed in a way that uses touch in a visual way, as a replacement of artificial tools in command execution, without further exploration of the particular and unique specifics of this sense.