ORIGINAL ARTICLE Move to get moved: a search for methods, tools and knowledge to design for expressive and rich movement-based interaction Caroline Hummels Æ Kees C. J. Overbeeke Æ Sietske Klooster Received: 11 December 2005 / Accepted: 2 September 2006 / Published online: 14 November 2006 Ó Springer-Verlag London Limited 2006 Abstract The world is inherently meaningful for us, i.e. we perceive the world in terms of what we can do with it, and by physically interacting with it we access this meaning and express the meaning. We believe that this is the core reason and foundation for turning to movement-based interaction. ‘Interaction creates meaning’ does not only hold for users during interaction but also for designers when generating ideas and developing concepts. Therefore, we postulate that if one truly likes to design for movement-based interaction, one has to be or become an expert in movement, not just theoretically, by imagination or on paper, but by doing and experiencing while designing. In order to do so, we believe that designers need design tools, techniques, knowledge, awareness and skills that support their search for expressive, rich behaviour. Our search for this support resulted in several methods, tools and knowledge that help designers exploring, visualising and reflecting on interactions. Our developed methods and tools such as the Design Movement approach with its choreography of interaction, gestural design tools, interactive installations and interactive tangible sketching, have not only supported and inspired designers to design for movement-based interaction, but also resulted in surprising, fresh designs in comparison with the limited scope of rather uniform and traditional electronic consumer products. This paper discusses the possibilities and limitations of our approach. Keywords Movement-based interaction Á Richness Á Tangible interaction Á Meaning Á Tools Á Methods Á Gestures Á Choreography of interaction Á Installations Á Emotions Á Expressivity Á Experience Á Product design 1 Introduction When looking at the juggler in Fig. 1, one can image how he is juggling. With little imagination, one can visualise the path of the balls in relation to the move- ments the juggler is making. However, if you have ever juggled yourself, or tried to do so, you know that imagining is not the same as experiencing. That is why jugglers need extensive training to become experts and do those amazing tricks with an almost impossible number of burning torches or weird objects. We believe that the same holds for design. If one truly likes to design for movement-based interaction, one has to be an expert in movement, not just theo- retically, by imagination or on paper, but by doing and experiencing while designing. C. Hummels (&) Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Landbergstraat 15, 2628 CE Delft, The Netherlands e-mail: C.C.M.Hummels@io.tudelft.nl URL: http://studiolab.io.tudelft.nl/hummels K. C. J. Overbeeke Á S. Klooster Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Den Dolech 2, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, The Netherlands K. C. J. Overbeeke e-mail: C.J.Overbeeke@tue.nl S. Klooster e-mail: sietske@designmovement.nl S. Klooster Design Movement, Berberisstraat 16, 1032 EL Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: sietske@designmovement.nl 123 Pers Ubiquit Comput (2007) 11:677–690 DOI 10.1007/s00779-006-0135-y