Computer Mouse:
A simple computer mouse maps the physical displacement and acceleration of itself onto a cursor’s motion displayed by a computer screen. Here, the input is the interface’s physical movement controlled by someone and the output is movements of a cursor in a virtual world. The system input and output share a spatial analogy, meaning that if the mouse is moved to the left with certain acceleration, the computer screen will display a cursor moving to the left with proportional acceleration and displacement. In Fishkin’s term, this would be considered as a tangible interface having “distant” embodiment, with “verb” metaphor. Distant embodiment refers to an interface’s input and output are not situated within the same body. Verb metaphor simply means that the analogy between the input and the output have nothing to do with its shape or physical form but only actions or spatial movement. The point of this tangible user interface is to create a bridge necessary for the user to access the virtual world in a manner that is logical and intuitive. Its natural resemblance of spatial movement makes it a very useful tool in the virtual domain which allows further development of important analogies like the drag-and-drop gesture.
It is a very useful tool and the mapping is very intuitive. However, it is not a fun interface at all. Users like me will quickly found that they don’t have to think to move the mouse as the cursor, and that this quick automation allow no room for developing entertaining experience. It is almost like the fact that your hand would not be entertaining as an adult since it is so intuitive physiologically and emotionally and nothing special or innovative about the way that your fingers or hands move.
Remotely-Controlled-Spybot
This is an attempt to reverse the input and output logic of a simple computer mouse interface. The system would receive input from a digital domain and does output on a physical domain. If human is the user then, of course, we must have a physical layer in this system as the input. That layer in my design would be a touch screen monitor. All the touch screen does is to shorten the gulf of manipulation so that the bits or the virtual cursor would appear more tangible creating an illusion of direct manipulation. The user will control that cursor/avatar on the screen just by touching it and then as the cursor is being moved, a small robot in the physical world will also be moved in a proportional direction, speed and acceleration. Moreover, the setup would be similar to a GPS system but instead having a car-like avatar representing your own moving vehicle, a user will drive the robot through the environment using the touch-screen-display. Putting aside the touch-screen aspect, the system would still hold a distant embodiment and a verb metaphor similar to that found in a computer mouse interface. A camera should also be added to the robot so that it would send signal back to the display similar to the robotic system NASA used in Mars.
Moving a physical robot using a virtual map interface resembling the real world would be a much more enjoyable and fun experience than that of moving a virtual cursor using a physical device. It is more like a toy rather than an interface build for practicality. For years human-being are having fun with remotely controlled physical machines (toy cars, ships, planes, robots, tank, etc) which in a sense give them a new way of interacting with the world using the same mindset but different physical capacities. Pushing this idea a step further, it would even increase the fun if the controller were to wear a 3D immersion head mounted display so that he is seeing in the robot’s perspective creating a semi-disembodyment experience.