PhD
As children’s play becomes more digital, interaction becomes more and more standardised an limited to swiping and tapping gestures on a touchscreen. For my PhD, I investigated how to combine the possibilities of the digital world with the rich, tactile experience of traditional toys. Using an Research-through-Design method, I investigated new interaction possibilities for digital toys through hands-on design experiments. I initially focused on the creation of fully tangible digital toys, where digital functionality was embedded into physical objects or tokens. This led to the development of a digital toy train with which children can create melodies by placing tokens in the train track. The prototype was compared to a non-digital LEGO DUPLO train and later inspired the development of a similar LEGO DUPLO train incorporating digital tokens. In a later phase, my research moved beyond fully tangible digital toys to also include graphical elements, not as standardised menus or icons, but as graphical controls designed to feel more physical that support embodied interaction.
Date: 2022