Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller, Martin Gibbs and Frank Vetere

Abstract:
Research in human-computer interaction has begun to acknowledge the benefits of physicality in the way people interact with computers. However, the role of physicality is often understood in terms of the characteristics of physical smart objects and their digital augmentation. We are stressing that the physicality lies within the interaction, not the object, and use a subset of bodily actions, exertion interactions, as an example to demonstrate our point. Emerging game designs have shown that supporting such exertion interactions can enable beneficial experiences between geographically distant participants. Based on several designs from our own work as well as others in this area we articulate reflections for the design of systems that support and facilitate bodily aspects of physicality in networked environments. We believe our work can serve as guidance for designers who are interested in creating future systems that support networked exertion interactions.