How Bodies Matter: Five Themes for Interaction Design Scott R. Klemmer, Björn Hartmann Stanford University HCI Group Computer Science Department Stanford, CA 94305-9035, USA {srk, bjoern}@cs.stanford.edu Leila Takayama Stanford University CHIMe Lab Communication Department Stanford, CA 94305-2050, USA takayama@stanford.edu ABSTRACT Our physical bodies play a central role in shaping human experience in the world, understanding of the world, and interactions in the world. This paper draws on theories of embodiment—from psychology, sociology, and philosophy — synthesizing five themes we believe are particularly salient for interaction design: thinking through doing, performance, visibility, risk, and thick practice. We intro- duce aspects of human embodied engagement in the world with the goal of inspiring new interaction design ap- proaches and evaluations that better integrate the physical and computational worlds. Author Keywords Embodiment, bodies, embodied interaction, ubiquitous computing, phenomenology, interaction design ACM Classification Keywords H.1.2 [Models and Principles]: User/Machine Systems. H.5.2 [Information Interfaces]: User Interfaces—theory and methods; user-centered design. INTRODUCTION The body is the ultimate instrument of all our external knowledge, whether intellectual or practical… experience [is] always in terms of the world to which we are attending from our body. —Michael Polanyi [56, p. 15] The richness of human knowledge and understanding is far deeper than the set of knowledge we can produce a sym- bolic account of. As Polanyi puts it, “we know more than we can tell” [56, p. 4]. To elucidate this assertion, consider riding a bicycle: one is simultaneously navigating, balanc- ing, steering, and pedaling; yet it is not possible for bicy- clists to articulate all of the nuances of an activity that they successfully perform. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this is that riding a bicycle is just one of thousands of activities that our bodies can do. Contrast the richness, subtlety, and coordination of tasks at several levels of concern that bicycling offers with the graphical user interface that we use today. One of the most sweeping — and unintended — transformations that the desktop computing paradigm has brought about is the extent to which the physical performance of work has homogenized. For certain activities, such as writing this paper, the keyboard interaction paradigm appropriately leverages our bimanual dexterity. But, with a keyboard and mouse interface, the use of our bodies for writing a paper is the same as for editing photographs. And playing music. And communicating with friends and family. And anything else that one might want computation for. This paper presents five themes that we believe are particu- larly salient for designing and evaluating interactive sys- tems. The first, thinking through doing, describes how thought (mind) and action (body) are deeply integrated and how they co-produce learning and reasoning. The second, performance, describes the rich actions our bodies are capable of, and how physical action can be both faster and more nuanced than symbolic cognition. The first two themes primarily address individual corporeality; the next two are primarily concerned with the social affordances. Visibility describes the role of artifacts in collaboration and cooperation. Risk explores how the uncertainty and risk of physical co-presence shapes interpersonal and human- computer interactions. The final theme, thickness of prac- tice, suggests that because the pursuit of digital verisimili- tude is more difficult than it might seem, embodied interac- tion is a more prudent path. To be sure, this paper is not the first to posit that richer interaction paradigms are possible. What we hope to contribute to this discussion is a synthesis of theoretical and empirical work—drawn from psychology, sociology, and philosophy — that provides insight for both ideation and evaluation of interaction design that integrates the physical and computational worlds. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. DIS 2006, June 26–28, 2006, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA. Copyright 2006 ACM 1-59593-341-7/06/0006...$5.00. THINKING THROUGH DOING The evidence supports … an evolutionary view of human reason, in which reason uses and grows out of bodily capacities. — George Lakoff and Mark Johnson [38] Direct physical interaction with the world is a key constitut- ing factor of cognitive development during childhood. The 140 © ACM, 2006. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in the Proceedings of DIS'06. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1142405.1142429