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The TAC paradigm: specifying tangible user interfaces

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Abstract

This paper introduces a paradigm for describing and specifying tangible user interfaces (TUIs). The proposed Token and Constraints (TAC) paradigm captures the core components of TUIs while addressing many of the conceptual challenges unique to building these interfaces. The paradigm enables the description of a broad range of TUIs by providing a common set of constructs. Thus, the TAC paradigm lays the foundation for a high-level description language and a software toolkit for TUIs. We evaluate the proposed paradigm by testing its ability to specify a wide variety of existing TUIs.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Mark D. Gross, Ellen Yi-Luen Do, Ken Camarata, and Brygg Ullmer as well as the reviewers and editors for their valuable feedback on this paper. We would also like to thank the students of the HCI research group at Tufts University and the students of the Design Machine Group at the University of Washington for discussing these ideas. We want to extend thanks to Tufts students Shan Lu and Cris Barbero for working with us, and to Juana Maria Hernandez from the Universidad Politecnica de San Luis Potosi. Finally, we thank Hiroshi Ishii and the Tangible Media Group at MIT. This work was partially supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation Partnerships for Innovation program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Tufts University, Medford, MA, 02155, USA

    Orit Shaer, Nancy Leland & Robert J. K. Jacob

  2. Universidad Politécnica de San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

    Eduardo H. Calvillo-Gamez

Authors
  1. Orit Shaer
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  2. Nancy Leland
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  3. Eduardo H. Calvillo-Gamez
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  4. Robert J. K. Jacob
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Correspondence to Orit Shaer.

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Shaer, O., Leland, N., Calvillo-Gamez, E.H. et al. The TAC paradigm: specifying tangible user interfaces. Pers Ubiquit Comput 8, 359–369 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-004-0298-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-004-0298-3

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