Augmenting collections of everyday objects: A case study of clothes hangers as an information display

Abstract

Though the common conception of human-computer interfaces is one of screens and keyboards, the emergence of ubiquitous computing envisions interfaces that will spread from the desktop into our environments. This gives rise to the development of novel interaction devices and the augmentation of common everyday objects to serve as interfaces between the physical and the virtual. Previous work has provided exemplars of such everyday objects augmented with interactive behaviour. We propose that richer opportunities arise when collections of everyday objects are considered as substrate for interfaces. In an initial case study we have taken clothes hangers as an example and augmented them to collectively function as an information display. © Springer-Verlag 2004.