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push, feel, and do who-knows-what-else to a thing, while simultane-
ously enjoying all that comes with complex computing and sensing
capabilities.
Consider two of the studio’s design principles (from the company’s
website) that guided this project:
• It had to be tactile: “We loved the idea of being able to hold a bit of
time, and to see and feel the size of time”
• It had to work both online and offline: “We travel a lot, and we want
to be able to see what’s going on wherever we are.”
According to Vitamins, this project “makes the most of the tangibility
of physical objects, and the ubiquity of digital platforms, and it also
puts a smile on our faces when we use it!”^2 Although this project and
others I’ll mention hint at the merging of the physical and the digital,
it’s important to look back and assess what has been good in the move
from physical to digital modes of interaction—and perhaps what has
been lost.
KANBAN WALLS, CHESS, AND OTHER TANGIBLE INTERACTIONS
Oddly enough, it is the software teams (the folks most immersed in
the world of virtual representations) who tend to favor tangibility when
it comes to things such as project planning; it’s common for Agile or
Scrum development teams to create Kanban walls, such as that shown
in Figure 5 - 2. Imagine sticky notes arranged in columns, tracking the
progress of features throughout the development cycle, from backlog
through to release. Ask most teams and they will say there is some-
thing about the tangibility of these sticky notes that cannot be repli-
cated by virtual representations.
There’s something about moving and arranging this sticky little square,
feeling the limitations of different size marker tips with respect to how
much can be written, being able to huddle around a wall of these sticky
notes as a team—there’s something to the physical nature of working
with sticky notes. But, is there any explanation as to “why” this tangi-
ble version might be advantageous, especially where understanding is
a goal?
2 http://www.special-projects-studio.com
nandana
(Nandana)
#1