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Are Tangible Interfaces Really Any Better Than Other Kinds of Interfaces

Tangible user interfaces (TUI) represent an increasingly popular approach to the design of systems for a variety of application domains including learning, collaborative planning and play. To date, most research has focused on technological development and the construction of descriptive taxonomies [e.g. 3, 4, 14]. A range of novel links between physical activity and digital effects has been explored together with developing a lingua franca to categorize and compare these systems. However, as with much of the early work on graphical interfaces [see 12], empirical work and theoretical development have failed to keep up with the pace of technical development in this area. While there have been some attempts to link tangible interaction with philosophical phenomenology [2], theoretical underpinnings of the learning and other cognitive benefits of TUIs, that have been empirically tested, are distinctly lacking. While there are many claims made about the benefits of tangibles compared with other kinds of interfaces (e.g., GUIs, speech) we really do not know why, how or whether they can be substantiated. The user studies that have been carried out have been largely informal evaluations that tend to be positive, i.e., users like them and find them easy to use. However, the results from the few controlled experiments that have been carried out have revealed no difference in performance between GUIs and TUIs [see 8]. This begs the question of what is actually gained from having physical, familiar and manipulative artefacts that are closely coupled with different kinds of digital information.