Trackmate : large-scale accessibility of Tangible User Interfaces

Abstract

There is a long history of Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) in the community of human-computer interaction, but surprisingly few of these interfaces have made it beyond lab and gallery spaces. This thesis explores how the research community may begin to remedy the disconnect between modern TUIs and the everyday computing experience via the creation and dissemination of Trackmate, an accessible (both ubiquitous and enabling) tabletop tangible user interface that scales to a large number of users with minimal hardware and configuration overhead. Trackmate is entirely open source and designed: to be community- centric; to leverage common objects and infrastructure; to provide a low floor, high ceiling, and wide walls for development; to allow user modifications and improvisation; to be shared easily via the web; and to work alongside a broad range of existing applications and new research interface prototypes.