TaPS Widgets: tangible control over private spaces on interactive tabletops

Private areas are important in multi-user tabletop systems, but hard to implement with current technology. Existing approaches usually involve wearable devices such as shutter glasses or head-mounted displays that are cumbersome to wear. We present TaPS, lightweight transparent widgets that only pass light coming from a particular direction to shield the content beneath them from other users, creating Tangible Private Spaces. TaPS widgets use low-cost hardware to provide tangible privacy controls to interactive tabletops. Informal studies indicate that TaPS widgets enable users to successfully move documents between public and private tabletop spaces without compromising privacy.