For the last years, I have seen tons of art installations using the same type of technologies stated in the blog post ”Physical Computing’s Greatest Hits (and misses). The interactive art scene in Montreal is pretty active and creators use various forms of physical computing approaches.

Collaborative installations
The interactive art pieces I found the most compelling are those inviting the users/public to collaborate to produced meaningful content. Not only the user has to get involved, but he also has to observe others and construct his experience according to the actions of the others. The best example is the project 21 balançoires by Mouna Andraos (an ITP graduate. It is because of her I am here, so thank you Mouna) and Melissa Mongiat.

The swings are installed in the spring at the main downtown public square. Pedestrians are invited to swing and create music. The swings are equipped with sensors. Once you picked a swing, you can produce a sound by swinging high or low. The swings also produce sounds when then pass by another swing, or if they follow the same rhythm of another swing. This means, you can make sounds on you own. But if you collaborate, you can actually make music. People spend hours swinging with friends or strangers. The whole installation sounds like a concert.

Bringing people together
Interactive art and physical computing are great ways to have strangers connecting to each other, interacting. With 21 Balançoires, the simple gesture of swinging becomes a social experiment. This is what I like about interactivity: creating interactions between humans. Too many interactive installations allow to interact with technology only. I guess they are meaningful in a way, but to me, the point of using physical computing device is to use them as a tool to have people reflect on their relationship to others. With physical computing, we can transform daily life contexts into something new, an experience that forces you to connect with society.

Interacting with objects
In 2011, I had the chance to work on Barcode.tv, an interactive documentary exploring our identities through objects surrounding us. It is pretty simple: using the website or the iPhone app, you can scan any barcode of any object. Then, a 1-minute film related to the category of object you picked is shown to you. In addition to the website and iPhone app, the creative team I worked with created an installation. Here is a timelapse I created during the three days it took to set it up for the first time:

The installation is great. The public is invited to take the objects and to put them on a socle which has microchip reader in it. Then a film related to the object is shown on the barcode screen. Even thought there is no collaboration between humans in this installation, I really liked it because it made you feel like the objects where talking to you.

Daily life as a trigger to interactiveland
What links 21 Balançoires and Barcode.tv is the fact they use a daily life setting to produce an interactive context. Swings are used by everybody and anyone is able to pick an object. Interactive storytelling can be really strong when it is embed in the public daily lives. Like the tone stairs at Pompidou Museum. This is where it becomes challenging: using physical computing in a way that is easily readable by users. A pattern I have seen to often is using technology to create something foreign to the users who get easily lost not knowing how to use the thing or how to behave. I do not have examples to show here, but I will try to remember some installation I did not like (I guess  this is why I do not remember them).

So, the key to me is: transforming a normal and simple gesture into something extraordinary. That is the best pattern.

For Physical Computing class, I had to come up with a creative idea for a switch. I sewed a switch out of conductive tread that is activated with pressure.

Here is what conductive tread looks like:

Here is a great video that explains it all:

You can find LED and conductive tread on Aniomagic. Here is a great Website to know more about fabrics and electronics, it is called How to get what you really want.

Here is what the interior of my switch looks like.

I sewed the negative wire to this side:

Then I sewed the positive wired to this one:

Then in between the two, I put a resistor material:

The switch in thus activated with pressure. The more you press, the brighter the LED is.

In the following weeks, I will sew a street gang style fabric patch with LEDs. When you will hug someone, the switch will activate the LEDs.

Every student going to the NYU Health Clinic has to sign in upon arrival. They do so using an interactive screen located in the main hall of the Clinic.

Where it is
The screen is on a 3 feet high support along the wall. Almost none of the students see it at first glance. One out of ten go directly to the reception desk to tell the receptionist they have arrived for their appointment. This clearly shows the interactive screen is not well displayed in the space as it is supposed to prevent every student to disturb the receptionist for appointments. Instead of being displayed along the wall in front of the reception desk, the screen should be located in front of the elevator. There should also be a sign with an arrow indicating students they have to do directly to the interactive screen to check in.

How it works
The interactive screen uses two different fonctions: there is a card reader on the right hand side and the screen is a touch screen one. When the screen is not being used, is darkens. To light it up you have to touch it. There is no indication for that, which is confusing for most people. They assume the screen is not working. Then they touch the screen to see, and then it works. But they did it as a personal initiative, not because they followed instructions.

When the screen is on it asks the student to enter his student number using a touch screen keyboard. The keys are really hard to use. It did not seem to work when using the forefinger. Most of the people had to use their thumb to make it works. Most of them tried with their forefinger first, then switched to using the thumb after they saw it did not work. The digital square for each letter recognizes only a big fingerprint. People with really tiny fingers have a hard time typing their student numbers.

The touch screen is really slow. It take a long time to enter a 8 digits numbers. Most of the people had to press more than once on every number before it was registered by the screen. This means that instead of pressing only 8 times, most people have to press at least 15 times to enter their 8 digits student number.

Once users have understood they have to use the touch screen to enter their details, things seems to work find for everybody. They follow the instructions and go through the questions and answer to check in for their appointments. The average transaction takes three minutes.

The thing is that in addition to the touch screen there is another option students can use to enter their student number: there is a card reader on the right hand side of the screen. Only 2 students out of 10 saw it and understood what it was for. There is no sigh on the machine that tells you you could it. It is simply there, expecting people to understand what it is for. This is not really convenient as it is so much faster to swipe the card instead of entering the numbers with the fingers on the screen.

This interactive device is a great idea in itself. It is supposed to save time to the receptionists and make sure every student has checked in before their appointment. The things is that, like Norman explained, the visibility of the fonctions is not well organized. The machine offers several options to the user, but none of them are clearly displayed and explained. There is no sign, no arrow, etc. Users stand in front of the screen and try to figure things out on their own. The instructions are not clear, same as for the telephone system shown in Norman’s book.

People stand in front of the machine and have to guess how to use it. They are not well guided in the experience.