The Interaction Material Profile: Understanding and Inspiring How Physical Materials Shape Interaction

Abstract

This paper presents the interaction material profile, a novel structural approach that supports a material-centered analysis of how physical materials affect human-computer interaction from different perspectives and on different levels. Inspired by material dimensions as discussed in product design and in a material-iconographic approach to understand how materials create meanings in artworks, this profile defines a micro and a macro perspective on interaction materials and includes general as well as application-specific material aspects. It builds a model to compare and discuss the role of physical materials in existing user interfaces and serves as a structure to build a catalogue of selected interaction materials.