The design of active workspaces

Abstract

This thesis investigates the creation of context-specific environments designed to assist people engaged in productive tasks. These Active Workspaces are an emerging class of applications that combine interaction design, innovative input and output techniques and multi-media coaching methodologies to teach people to create things in the physical domain. The design and implementation of two systems that exemplify the features, process and goals of Active Workspace design are detailed and evaluated. CounterActive is an interactive kitchen counter that guides users of varying age and skill level through the preparation of several recipes. CounterActive enlivens the experience of cooking with instructional videos, illustrative photos, entertaining music and sounds. Origami Desk is an exhibit that teaches people how to fold paper into beautiful boxes and cranes. The desk not only projects animations and videos for the user to mimic, but also monitors the folding of the paper to enable performance feedback. These project descriptions are accompanied by generalized principles for the design of Active Workspaces, process guidelines, and as well as analysis of relevant technologies and ruminations on possible future applications in this arena.