This document summarizes a workshop about spatial interaction design and embodied understanding. It discusses how experts use the intelligent arrangement of space to extend memory, make sense of tasks, simplify choices and processes. It also discusses how understanding comes through interaction with representations that relate to the physical world and allow direct manipulation. Designing for collaboration and dynamic spatial modeling was presented as a way to activate the body for understanding complex systems. The workshop aimed to discuss using space to think and dynamic spatial models for sensemaking.

1. A workshop for
understanding
Sjors Timmer
@sjors
The foundations of spatial
interaction design

4. A screen is the answer.
What was the question?
—Free after Cedric Price

6. Embodied understanding
and manipulation
One form of abstract
understanding and
indirect manipulation

7. Augmented reality could provide the technology to
bring back our whole body into digital design

9. Paul Sellers

10. How might we ‘invent knowledge work
that incorporates the body’?
—Bret Victor
The humane representation of thought (2014)

11. The intelligent use of space
Understanding through interaction
A workshop for understanding
1.
2.
3.

12. 1. The intelligent use of space

13. The intelligent use of space
How we manage the spatial arrangement of
items around us, is not an afterthought; it is an
integral part of the way we think, plan and
behave.
- David Kirsh

14. Extend memory

15. Sense making

16. Novel ways of
seeing

18. Experts constantly re-arrange
items to make it easy to track the
state of the task, or to notice the
properties signalling what to do
next.
—David Kirsh

19. Simplify choice
Once a context of action has
been triggered, the local
affordances make clear what can
and must be done, and prevent
us from considering irrelevant
alternatives.
—David Kirsh

20. Simplify what’s next
If I can arrange items to display
the sequence they are are to be
used in, then I don’t have to
remember that order.
—David Kirsh

21. Simplify how next
The environment also indicates
how I should do my next action

22. Experts create little assembly lines of tasks, switching
between short bursts of high cognitive preparation and
longer lower cognitive execution tasks.

23. 2. Understanding through
interaction

24. Where the action is — the foundations of
embodied interaction design
Embodied Interaction is the creation,
manipulation, and sharing of meaning through
engaged interaction with artefacts.
- Paul Dourish

25. We make sense of the world through interacting with it

26. 1. Observable and reportable
Interaction with the system should
reveal the purposes for which it was
designed and how it is intended to
be used

27. 2. Representations should relate to
the world
The relation between what can be
seen and what is represented should
make sense within the user’s world
experience

28. 3. Physical representation
Being physical humans in a physical
world has endowed us with a rich set
of skills. We should build upon those

29. 4. Direct manipulation
• Interaction through physical
movements
• Allow for rapid and reversible
actions that provide immediate
visible feedback

30. 5. From space to place
Turn space into a place by
transforming it from ‘just’ physical to
a social environment

31. 5. From space to place
Turn space into a place by
transforming it from ‘just’ physical to
a social environment
• How you move your body
changes how you experience the
computing system

32. 5. From space to place
Turn space into a place by
transforming it from ‘just’ physical to
a social environment
• How you move your body
changes how you experience the
computing system
• The computational system can be
adapted through changes in your
physical environment

33. 6. Design for collaboration
When the system is centred around
manipulating artefacts, then all users
can see the results of an action
because they all see the same
artefact

34. 7. Design for model making
We should design for the dynamic
spatial representation of thought
- Bret Victor
The humane representation of thought
(2014)
Illustration by David Hellman

35. Using our whole body to interact with the
world around us activates underused
capabilities for understanding

36. 3. A workshop for understanding

40. Magic lensesBricks - (Bill Buxton)

41. Model makers

42. Dynamic spatial models makers

44. Discovery Sense making Mapping Prototyping Testing

45. Recap
- We use space to think
- We use the environment to lower the demands on our
short and long term memory
- We should use our body to interact with the world
around us to open up underused capabilities to
understand complex systems
- Creating and interacting with dynamic spatial models
is the most powerful way to understand complex
systems

46. Deep Interaction at UX Brighton -
Youtube
– Karl Fast
The Humane Representation of
Thought - Vimeo
– Bret Victor
More to watch

47. Thank you!
Sjors Timmer
@sjors