Abstract
Our perceptual system allows us to experience and make meaning of the world through different modalities. We can move between feeling, seeing and hearing things and still makes sense of our world. Our cognitive activities are transmodal. In interaction design this means that both our design processes and our users’ interactions are transmodal. We have gained insights into how transitions between modalities, both in the design context and in the users’ interaction context, modulate meaning and experience, by analysing three interactive systems: SimProv, VibEd, and Sightlence. We propose that a transmodal design approach facilitate designers to realize the communicative potential of different modalities, and hence present users with a transmodal perspective on their interaction space that allow for continuous rearrangement and use of modalities.
Keywords
situated cognition; transmodal design; transmodality; interaction design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.511
Citation
Nordvall, M., and Arvola, M. (2016) Perception, Meaning and Transmodal Design, in Lloyd, P. and Bohemia, E. (eds.), Future Focused Thinking - DRS International Conference 2016, 27 - 30 June, Brighton, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2016.511
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Perception, Meaning and Transmodal Design
Our perceptual system allows us to experience and make meaning of the world through different modalities. We can move between feeling, seeing and hearing things and still makes sense of our world. Our cognitive activities are transmodal. In interaction design this means that both our design processes and our users’ interactions are transmodal. We have gained insights into how transitions between modalities, both in the design context and in the users’ interaction context, modulate meaning and experience, by analysing three interactive systems: SimProv, VibEd, and Sightlence. We propose that a transmodal design approach facilitate designers to realize the communicative potential of different modalities, and hence present users with a transmodal perspective on their interaction space that allow for continuous rearrangement and use of modalities.