WORKING PAPERS

University of Art and Design Helsinki

F 35

Digital Tools
– A New Way to Interact with the World
Blanca Acuña & Nuno Correia (eds.)

Brenda Castro
Eirik Fatland
Xin Li
Heli Rantavuo
Joanna Saad-Sulonen
Mariana Salgado
Anna Salmi
Digital Tools, a New Way to Interact with the World

Working Papers / Työpaperit

Publication Series, F 35
University of Art and Design Helsinki

Editorial Board
Yrjänä Levanto (editor-in-chief), Pia Sivenius, Susann Vihma

Lay-Out
Blanca Acuña

Further Information
University of Art and Design Helsinki
Hämeentie 135C
00560 Helsinki
Tel. +358-9-75631, telefax +358-9-756-30433
Publications / Annu Ahonen, tel. +358-9-756-30213, e-mail: annu.ahonen@taik.fi
Research Institute / Pia Sivenius, tel. +358-9-756-30528, e-mail: pia.sivenius@taik.fi

ISBN 978-951-558-265-2pdf
ISSN 1455-8955
Helsinki 2008
Contents

Blanca Acuña and Nuno Correia: Digital Tools, a New Way to Interact with the World..........................3

Eirik Fatland and Xin Li: The Puppet UI: Tools for Nonverbal Communication in Virtual Environments......4

Heli Rantavuo: Playing with Broadband: Circulating Digital Snapshots....................................................12

Brenda Castro: The Virtual Art Garden:

A Case Study of User-centered Graphical User Interface Design..................................................................17

Joanna Saad-Sulonen: First Steps Towards Designing the “Urban Mediator”................................................23

Mariana Salgado and Anna Salmi: Use of Clay in the Dialogue with the Visually Impaired.....................27
 3
Blanca Acuña (bacuna@taik.fi)
Nuno Correia (mail@nunocorreia.com)
Digital Tools, a New Way to Interact with the World
“The notion of tool has always been a romantic idea for humankind –
from swords to musical instruments to personal computers (...)” (Kay 2001, 131)
This new Working Papers edition presents a se-
lection of projects, research, and educational
topics developed at the Media Lab, the School of
Digital Design of the University of Art and Design
Helsinki.
The topic developed in the current issue of Media
Lab Working Papers focuses on theories and design
issues related to tools within the digital domain. Since
new media is such a novel and interdisciplinary field,
it offers a wide breadth of possible research lines in
the creation of such applications. The assorted ap-
proaches towards the topic developed by the authors
in this issue are a sample of the diversity and scope of
possibilities in the field.
The digital revolution that spread with the use of
personal computers and the Internet in the 80’s and
90’s has grown at a vertiginous speed among the
different societies, attracting global attention to the
development and implementation of Information
and Communication Technologies around the world.
These technologies have opened new possibilities for
accessing digital information, obtaining knowledge,
building virtual worlds, and have also allowed people
to be connected to several locations without restric-
tions of time and space.
These digital possibilities are accessed by the use
of tools, artifacts that act as mediators between hu-
mans and technology. Tools have been around since
early times, when Humankind started trying to ‘re-
cord’, ‘sign’, ‘communicate’, and ‘perform’. For ac-
complishing this, men searched for ways to invent
artifacts that could act as an extension of human
activities. The search for such artifacts spread from
the use of flints to mark changes of seasons; to the
making of pointed sticks for drawing on clay tablets
to sign animals and belongings; through tool making
for hunting and helping on harvesting activities; to
the mass-production of household objects, electronic
devices for communication and entertainment; up to
the design and implementation of computer interfac-
es that allow for interaction with digital systems.
This selection of essays is a sample of the research
and academic work developed in Media Lab. Some
of these essays are in the initial conceptual state, or
have already designed the first prototype; while oth-
ers have by now implemented usability testing or are
part of a bigger research project towards a doctoral
dissertation work. Through different ways but with
the same goal, the following writers have been re-
searching ways for developing solutions, which can
improve interaction and performance with the use of
digital tools.
Fatland and Li, in their paper “The Puppet UI:
Tools for Nonverbal Communication in Virtual En-
vironments”, present tools as part of a larger ICT en-
vironment, while a different approach is developed
by Rantavuo, in the paper “Playing with Broadband:
Circulating Digital Snapshots”, where the analysis is
focused on the way visual material circulates within
media. Two of the writers propose projects where
tools are used within a community of interest: Castro,
in the essay “The Virtual Art Garden: A Case Study
of User-Centered Graphical User Interface Design”,
develops a concept based on collaboration and moti-
vation within a community, and Saad-Sulonen, with
the text “First Steps Towards Designing the “Urban
Mediator”, conducts research on how to implement
an interface for connecting citizens and city admin-
istrators in the Helsinki area. Finally, the text by Sal-
gado and Salmi proposes accessibility solutions in
museum settings: “Use of Clay in the Dialogue with
the Visually Impaired”.
There is still plenty of research to be done on the
design, development, and implementation of tools
that could fulfill this 21st century need for the ex-
tension of human activities in the digital sphere. As
Bergson states, “Intelligence, considered in what it
seems to be its original feature, is the faculty of man-
ufacturing artificial objects, especially tools for mak-
ing tools” (Bergson quoted in Gassée & Rheingold
1990, 225). The dossier Digital Tools, a New Way to
Interact with the World, hopes to contribute to these
developments with ideas, projects and academic re-
search within the field of new media.
Bibliography
Gassée J.R. & Rheingold M. 1990. “The Evolution
of Thinking Tools”. In B. Laurel (ed.): The Art of
Human-Computer Interface Design. Reading: Addi-
son-Wesley Publishing, 225-227.
Kay, A. 2001. “User Interface: A Personal View”. In R.
Packer & K. Jordan (eds.): Multimedia - From Wagner
to Virtual Reality. New York: W. W. Norton & Com-
pany, 121-131.
 4
Eirik Fatland (eirik@efatland.com)
Xin Li (thoughtbird@gmail.com)
The Puppet UI: Tools for Nonverbal Communication
in Virtual Environments
At present, a user’s control of his/her persona
in an online virtual world such as “World of War-
craft” or “Second Life” is constrained to text in-
put through a keyboard, excluding most forms of
nonverbal communication. The “Puppet UI” is an
ongoing exploration of alternative input methods,
inspired by hand puppets, that are intended to
enhance inter-personal communication and user
agency in virtual environments.
Introduction
For most citizens in the industrialized world, and
especially for the younger generations, computer-
mediated communication tools such as e-mail,
weblogs, social software, instant messaging and web
fora have become integral to everyday life. With the
exception of dedicated audio and video services,
such as Skype or YouTube, online communication is
primarily conducted through text.
Reliance on text communication is especially
obvious and puzzling in so-called “Virtual Worlds”
that frame their communities within an imitation
of the physical world and represent their users as
virtual, animated personae called “avatars”. In terms
of technology, text chat is the simplest solution to
the needs of computer mediated communication. In
terms of culture, the written word conceals its writer,
and allows for anonymity and role-play in the virtual
environment. However, it is poorly suited to carry the
breadth and depth of inter-human communication –
much of which relies on nonverbal signals.
To the degree that an avatar can mimic the human
body, it is controlled through a mouse and keyboard,
and relies on static pre-recorded animations for
movement, activated through a text command or
button click. Such interfaces are cumbersome,
and map poorly to user intentions. A better input
method would facilitate real-time control of avatar
gesture and posture as well as movement, a seamless
connection between the user’s nervous system and
avatar locomotion.
The “Puppet UI” is a proposed input method for
avatar-based communication in virtual environments.
Our goal is to facilitate user expression of bodily
and vocal nonverbal signals. In designing this input
method, we are taking our inspiration from hand
puppets – user interfaces that predate the Internet
by hundreds of years, and are well-understood and
well-tested ways of animating a virtual persona. In
developing the Puppet UI, we are using an iterative
design process, involving benchmarking, user
studies, low-fidelity and working prototypes. This
paper outlines the context of this work, and presents
the results of the first iteration.
An iterative design approach requires a certain
degree of flexibility. We are working on an “input
method”, which may or may not require a specialized
input device, and the “Puppet UI” may take the form
of an actual puppet, worn over the user’s hand, or of
an interface that is only distantly inspired by puppetry
but serves a similar purpose.
Target Group: Social Internet users
We are interested in designing for the social Internet
user. This group is fairly wide, but not all-inclusive.
Nearly all Internet use is social in the sense that it
involves communication between individuals. But
much of this communication is pragmatic or utilitarian
– geared towards the exchange of factual information
or the maintenance of social bonds formed outside
of the Internet context. Work-related e-mail and
instant messenger contact with family members are
examples of such communication.
Social Internet users additionally seek interaction
with other users who they may never meet offline,
and engage in social behaviour for the purpose of
entertainment or self-expression. Examples of such
behaviour include:
• “Role-play”, in its strict meaning of
collaborative construction of fictional
reality through dramatic impersonation.
(Montola 2005).
• “Role-play”, in its looser meaning of
expressing an online identity distinct
from the user’s offline identities. (Donath
1999, 29 - 59)
 5
• Social curiosity - building familiarity
with (and understanding of) people the
user cannot meet in the offline world.
• Flirtation and virtual romance.
• Cybersex and sexually themed role-play.
• Company, the satisfaction of the need
for human contact.
• Community, the satisfaction of the need
to belong.
• Competitive game-play, pitting
individuals or teams against AI or other
human opponents.
We can draw two conclusions from this list of
social Internet behaviours: All of these practices may,
to a greater or lesser degree, be aided by non-verbal
communication. And they rely, to varying degrees,
on hiding the actual user under the layer of the online
persona.
We can assume that current social users at present
find text input at least minimally acceptable, or they
would not engage in social behaviour on the Internet.
Our goal is thereby to enhance the experience of those
users who find the text input method lacking. These
fall into two groups: those who make do with text
input, but would prefer a more expressive interface,
and those who currently are not social users due to
the lack of support for nonverbal communication.
A third group, social users who prefer the text
input method, fall outside of our target group. Such
users might lack interest or skill in non-verbal
communication, or they might feel more comfortable
and skilled in expressing themselves through text.
Many of the current social users, due to practice and
familiarity, can be assumed to belong to this third
group.
We are primarily interested in aiding the social
interaction of adult users, but do not exclude potential
future applications designed for children.
Design objectives
First and foremost, our ideal input method should
facilitate complex non-verbal communication
between users. Additionally, it should fulfill four
criteria that follow from the target user group:
1. Agency - the user should feel a greater sense of
presence and control in the virtual environment than
with the keyboard input method.
2. Learnability - no prior training or explanation
should be required for the user to master the basic
functionality of the input method.
3. Flexibility - users should be capable of learning
or inventing gestures not envisioned in the original
design.
4. Feasibility - the input method or device should
be based on off-the-shelf, inexpensive technology.
Background: Verbal and nonverbal
communication
Nonverbal signals
Nonverbal signals are essential to any kind of
interpersonal communication. As a “communication
coding system” nonverbal signals play a key role in
impression formation, complex emotional expression
and conveying personality (Burgoon and Hoobler
2002, 241-299). Research has found that the majority
of humans are strongly reliant on nonverbal cues,
such as body movements, gestures and appearance,
in order to form initial impressions of others and
act upon those impressions. Burgoon and Hoobler
describe seven classes of nonverbal codes in human
visual cognition and sound sensation:
• Kinesis: bodily movements, gestures,
facial expressions, posture, gaze, and gait
• Vocalics or paralanguage: pitch,
loudness, tempo, pauses, and inflection
• Physical appearance: clothing,
hairstyle, cosmetics, fragrances,
adornments
• Haptics: use of touch, including
frequency, intensity, and type of contact
• Proxemics: use of interpersonal
distance and spacing relationships
• Chronemics: use of time as message
system, punctuality, lead time, etc.
• Artifacts: manipulable objects and
environmental features that may convey
messages
In face-to-face communication, most of these
nonverbal cues are rich, visible, and relatively easy to
grasp. In most situations, they co-exit with linguistic
cues.
Colin Ware states that “gesture as linking devices” is
the most natural way to link verbal content and visual
imagery (Ware 2004, 309). He classifies gestures as
belong to three distinct classes, dependent on their
relationship to the speech they accompany: deictic
(indicating), symbolic (illustrating) or expressive
(emphasizing). According to Ware, gestures provide
an additional, visual, cognition channel alongside
the audible channel of speech. A similar observation

is made by Goldin-Meadow (1999, 422): “Because
gesture rests on different representational devices
from speech, and is not dictated by standards of form
as is speech, it has the potential to offer a different
view into the mind of the speaker.”
Nonverbal signals in virtual worlds
Table 1 shows the degree to which these non-verbal
cues are implemented in two of the most popular
virtual worlds – World of Warcraft (a MMO game)
and Second Life (a multi-purpose virtual world).
Kinesis Vocalics Appearance
Second Limited, No Yes
Life UC
World of Very No Partial
Warcraft Limited,
SC
Table 1: Support for nonverbal signals in “Second Life” and “World of Warcraft”.
UC= User Created Content, SC= System Created Content.
Proxemics and Chronemics are possible to use as
non-verbal signals in virtual worlds, but the nature of
such worlds decrease the power of these signals. Since
the user is not actually present in the virtual world, but
observes the avatars from an external point of view
(zooming in and and out at will), proxemics loose
some of their power. Lacking voice, and accurate
information about the user presence, chronemics –
too – loose some of their communicative power. If
a user delays an answer, he/she may not be sending
a nonverbal signal but simply be preoccupied with
something other than virtual world interaction in her
real physical environment.
Haptics, the illusion of touch, pose large challenges
in terms of technology and human factors, rather
than design, and are therefore excluded from this
study. Tools that allow the users to modify and create
content, such as Second Life’s 3D building tools and
scripting language, are already proving effective at
allowing players to use appearance and artifacts as
nonverbal signals.
Our focus is on the two remaining classes of
nonverbal signs: kinesis and vocalics. These are,
incidentally, the most commonly used and identifiable
forms of nonverbal signals.
The virtual worlds that are popular at present have
either no user control of avatar gestures, or implement
an interface where the user can run commands – as
6
text or button-clicks – to initiate gestures or modify
posture. In Second Life, for example, a “/dance”
command will start the avatar dancing according
to a pre-defined animation. Users can replace such
animations by uploading a custom animation of their
own design, but not improvise a new gesture on the
fly.
Voice communication, a prerequisite for vocalic
signals, require voice rather than text communication.
At present, voice communication in virtual worlds is
only available through third-party services such as
Ventrillo and Teamspeak, but not through the user
Haptics Proxemics Chronemics Artifacts
No Possible Possible Yes,
UC
No Possible Possible Partial,
SC
interface itself. Furthermore, speech through such
services has no effect on the properties of the virtual
world. When a user chats in Second Life, the avatar
mimics keyboard-typing movements, but if he or she
speaks through voice-chat software nothing happens
to the avatar. Neither can the user’s voice be heard by
other users without the required software set to the
appropriate channel.
Previous research
There are several examples of design research
approaching non-verbal communication in avatar-
based online environments. One of the earliest, Comic
Chat (Kurlander et al. 1996, 225-236), represented
users as 2D avatars on a stage composed according
to the conventions of comic strips. BodyChat
(Vilhjálmsson & Cassell 1998, 269-276) and Cursive
(Barrientos & Canny 2002, 151-152) automate
avatar gestures by estimating the user’s intentions.
In BodyChat, intentions are explicitly input through
user selection of events such as “greeting” and
“farewell” but are modified by variables such as time
and distance between avatars. Cursive, designed for
pen input, allows avatar control through pen gestures,
and additionally interprets the user’s handwriting to
determine the avatars gesture and posture. Sentoy
(Paiva et al. 2003, 60-67) uses a physical doll as input
device for a virtual doll, in the context of a game
 7
where the user would manipulate the doll through one
of six pre-set gestures corresponding to emotions.
Puppets as interfaces
Learnability of hand puppets
Puppets and their interfaces come in a wide range of
complexity and required skill. Some puppet designs,
such as the Balinese shadow puppet or the two-
handed marionette of European puppetry, require
years of practice to master. “Hand puppets”, which
are worn over the puppeteer’s hand, require minimal
skill to manipulate. A child may pick up a hand
puppet for the first time, and immediately be able
to use the puppet to mimic speech and for gestural
communication.
The learnability of puppet models is largely an
issue of mapping and coordination. In the case of the
hand puppet the fingers of the puppeteer are mapped
directly to the limbs of the puppet, providing instant
feedback and reducing the cognitive load of puppet
operation. Single-handed puppets further reduce
the need for coordination between the puppeteer’s
limbs. As such, hand puppets are ideal models for an
avatar control method designed for end users with
no particular skill in puppetry. Additionally, single-
handed puppet interfaces leave the puppeteer’s other
hand free for mouse or keyboard interaction.
Most hand puppet designs fall into one of two
categories - they are “sock puppets”, where the
puppeteer uses the thumb opposite the four remaining
fingers to control a puppet’s mouth movements, and
“glove puppets” where the puppeteer manipulates the
head and arms of the puppet using the thumb, middle
and little fingers. The anatomy of the human hand
makes it difficult to move all five digits independently
of each other. Typically, a glove puppet will be
manipulated through the use of three digits: the
thumb, the little finger and the middle finger. The
index and ring fingers may either be clutched against
the palm, or (preferably) moved together with the
middle finger and little finger.
User study
We conducted an informal user study to observe how
ordinary people (not professional puppeteers) express
themselves through a glove puppet. As we sought to
understand play behaviour, the experiments took place
in a class room and a cafe, rather than in a laboratory
or studio. We did two different experiments: in the
first experiment, we asked users manipulating a hand
puppet to have a short conversation with another
person. In the second experiment, we ask users to
express certain emotions, such as joy, sadness and
boredom, through the hand puppet. These experiments
were recorded to video and reviewed afterwards.
Findings from observation of the conversation
experiments (3 experiments):
• Users made larger and more visible
movements when the puppet was
“speaking” than when it was “listening”.
For example, users would move the
puppet in a small, nodding movement to
indicate “I’m listening”. (much like two
people have a conversation)
• All three of Ware’s gesture classes
(symbolic, deictic and expressive) were
used.
Findings from observation of the expression
experiments (4 experiments):
• “Joy” was usually indicated by large,
energetic, rapid movements with the
puppets head lifted upwards.
• “Sad” movements were usually slow,
with the puppet’s head bowed down and
the hands held close to the face or eyes.
• “Boredom” movements were less
consistent than the two others. Two out
of four users expressed this emotion by
making puppet leaning backwards.
• Although there are general trends for
both happy and sad movement, each
user’s movements were distinct and
unique.
Findings from both experiments:
• All users employed vocalizations, such
as laughs, whistles and sighs, to clarify
the puppet’s emotion. For example,
rapidly twisting the puppet from left
to right might be interpreted in several
ways, but giggling sounds accompanying
it were used to express joy.
• Users often twisted the puppet around.
Rotation of the head or whole puppet
along the vertical axis was the most
common form of twisting.
• A recognizable figure might not be
an ideal puppet for a generic avatar. Our
puppet looked like a lamb, and so at least
two users tried to express the character of
a lamb rather than conveying their own
emotions and intentions.
 8
Prototyping puppet UI
Tracking
To emulate the interface of a glove puppet, our
ideal input method needs to track three points –
corresponding to the three fingers – in all three
dimensions. Glove puppets only incidentally require
the movement of the finger joints to operate –
sufficient information can be obtained by tracking
the fingertips relative to the hand.
Rotation of the fingers relative to each other is
near impossible, and so tracking of finger rotation is
not necessary. However, hand puppet manipulation
requires rotation and movement of the whole hand.
Our user interviews showed users twisting the puppet
from left to right in order to communicate a gesture of
refusal, or lifting it rapidly up and down in a jumping
motion to communicate joy or anger.
An ideal hand-tracking device for avatar puppetry
will thus have the following requirements:
• Tracking of three points, correlated with
fingers, in 3 degrees of freedom (x, y and
z axes) each.
• Tracking of whole hand rotation and
movement in 6 degrees of freedom - x, y
and z plus rotation along all three axes.
This adds up to a requirement for a 15 degrees
of freedom (DOF) hand-tracking device, a level
of tracking offered only by expensive high-end
datagloves. However, the interface method does not
require precise data on hand location and rotation,
as information about hand rotation along the x and z
axes can be inferred by comparing fingertip location
to the palm location. Additionally, the movement of
fingertips is anatomically constrained, so that their
position along the z axis may – at least partially –
be inferred from their position along the x and y
axes. A minimal hand-tracking device for avatar
puppetry therefore needs only to meet the following
requirements:
Figure 1.
• Tracking of the palm in two degrees of
freedom (x,y).
• Tracking of three points correlated with
fingers, each along the x and y axes,
relative to the palm.
• Tracking of hand rotation along the y
axis.
The minimal Puppet UI may therefore be made by
tracking four points along two axes, and rotation of
the whole hand along one axis. The location tracking
can be accomplished through a 2D input device such
as a web camera, accompanied by colour or pattern
tracking software and calculation of the points’
position relative to each other. Hand rotation along
the y axis is not easy to infer from a 2D capture
device, but early prototypes can be done without
y-rotation tracking.
Additionally, certain events may need to be tracked
with additional precision:
• Two fingers touching, e.g. the case of an
avatar clapping.
• Fingers touching the palm, the case of a
closed fist.
These events may be inferred by the proximity
of tracked points – two fingertips overlapping can
be interpreted as a “clap” event. Unfortunately,
occlusion of a tracked point by another will yield the
same data even without the fingers actually touching.
Ideally, touch sensors in the device will be able to
detect such events.
Feedback
Glove puppets provide tactile feedback through
fingertips touching each other or the hand, and through
 9
the properties of the material itself. The material
properties of the puppet are important constraints
on user manipulation - by making movements easier
or harder to perform, they constrain the puppet to
make certain gestures easier or harder to express. In
a well-designed puppet, the gestures that are easy to
express will be the ones that make the puppet more
convincing. A Puppet UI may be designed along the
same lines – built to constrain certain movements,
and make other movements simpler. This would also
provide the user with passive haptic feedback.
Active haptic feedback is desirable to the degree
that the avatar touches other physical objects in the
virtual environment. This may be the case, as with
avatars shaking hands or wielding tools, but the
complexity and expense of active haptic devices
means that this type of feedback is not feasible for
the Puppet UI project.
The primary feedback from the Puppet UI will
thereby be visual. As the interface maps the user’s
hand to a 3D avatar, visual feedback may come from
both locations:
1.The user observing the avatar
movements on the screen
2.The user observing his/her hand as it is
being tracked
This leaves us with two options for further design.
If the screen is to provide all feedback, the input
device does not need to resemble a puppet. But if
the input device, by itself, provides visual feedback
Figure 2.
it may need to resemble the puppet to some degree.
We intend to explore both options through further
prototypes and user studies.
Working Prototype
To test our assumptions further, we built a rough
working prototype. The prototype was programmed
in Macromedia Director MX, using the TTCPro Xtra
for colour tracking. Our protoype input device was
a glove, with three coloured points on the fingertip,
worn and held in front of a web camera. The software
would track the fingertip points, and map them to the
limbs of a 2D avatar. We tested two different forms
of mapping. In our first experiment, points and limbs
were mapped directly to each other. If the user moved
her middle finger to the right, the avatars head would
move to the right. The second experiment limited the
avatars movements to trajectories – if the user moved
her middle finger to the right, the avatar head would
stay in the same location, but tilt towards the right.
The first experiment, providing direct mapping
between fingertips and avatar limbs, worked better
than the second experiment, where the tracked data
was modified to better represent the movements of
the avatar. Users reported a stronger sense of control,
and viewers felt the motions of the simple avatar to be
more believable. These results indicate that immediate
feedback and direct mapping are necessary to sustain
user agency in this form of manipulation.
The lack of precision in colour tracking led the
avatar’s limbs to move even when the users hand
was still. The precision of colour tracking may be
improved through a better camera, better tracking
points, and more control over the lighting. Still, this
indicates that the colour tracking method may not
work well enough for an end-user product.
Discussion
Speech
In 2.2 (above) we identified kinesis and vocalics
as the classes of non-verbal cues most suitable for
our purposes. The prototype Puppet UI explores
the use of kinetic cues, but not vocalics – which are
conveyed through verbal communication. Though
one might easily imagine a purely non-verbal virtual
environment, where communication occurs through
mimicry, the goal of our design is to enhance rather
than substitute the user experience of current virtual
environments. Language therefore needs to be
considered for future iterations.
One option is to retain the text chat interface
currently used in virtual worlds. If the user is engaged
 10
in using one hand for avatar control, the other hand
might be used for text entry through a keyboard.
Keyboard text entry, while it may be done single-
handedly, is significantly faster when done with both
hands. Furthermore, users are generally accustomed
to two-handed keyboard typing. In the typical desktop
computer set-up, one hand is also used for interaction
with a mouse or other pointing device.
A second option, then, is to use voice communication
– which would also add vocalics to the array of non-
verbal signals. By tracking the user’s voice input,
especially if aided by a microphone that filters out
ambient noise, the avatar’s mouth or head can be
synchronized to the spoken word. In our initial user
tests, we saw a clear difference in user behaviour
depending on whether the puppet was made to speak
or not. A speaking puppet would be moved in large,
dramatic gestures while a silent (listening) puppet
might make small, almost imperceptible movements
to communicate agreement, disagreement and
attention. Tracking the user’s voice input can thus
confer the additional benefit of modifying avatar
behaviour to imitate this pattern.
However, voice in virtual environments is far from
unproblematic. The user’s real voice risks revealing
his/her gender, age, nationality, dialect or sociolect in
ways that text chat does not, limiting the anonymity
of the user and making role-play difficult. Practices
such as gender-play, where a user of one gender
plays an avatar of the opposite gender or some third
gender, are well-documented and pervasive in virtual
Figure 3.
environments. The virtual world promises that “you
can be whoever you wish to be” – this might be part
of the core appeal for current Social Internet users.
Conclusions
The prototyping, benchmarking and user studies
done in the first iteration showed that the idea itself
is viable. But it also showed that further iterations are
needed to refine and test this idea. Future iterations of
the prototype should include audio transmission and
study how this effects user behaviour and perception.
The question of input device design, whether it
should ideally resemble the avatar or not, needs to be
resolved through comparative user studies.
The current iteration of the Puppet UI captures
hand and head movements well, but it is far less
precise when it comes to facial expressions. Users are
limited to moving and/or tilting the avatar’s head, and
to underline head movements with arm movements.
Given the importance of facial expression in non-
verbal communication, this may prove a disadvantage.
This issue can be further explored by modifying our
input device to work as a facial control interface,
mapping points to eyes and mouth movements rather
than head and hands, or by directly tracking the user’s
facial expressions.
It is possible that the puppet UI would not appeal to
the typical social Internet users. It would break with
already established practices regarding anonymity
 11

and textual meta-communication. We hope to test

whether a puppet UI might appeal to new users,
whether it might enable new kinds of social Internet
practices, and whether such practices are interesting
or powerful enough to replace text-based practices.

Bibliography

Barrientos, F. & Canny, J. 2001. “Cursive: A Novel In-

teraction Technique for Controlling Expressive Avatar
Gesture”. In UIST 01. November 11-14, 2001. Orlan-
do: Florida, 151-152.
Burgoon, J. & Hoobler, G. 2002. “Nonverbal Signal”. In
M. Knapp & J. Daly (eds.): Handbook of Interpersonal
Communication. London: Sage Publications, 241-299.
Donath, J. S. 1999. “Identity and Deception in the Virtual
Community”. In P. Kollock & M. Smith (eds.): Com-
munities in Cyberspace. Routledge: London, 29 - 59.
Kurlander, D., Skelly. T. & Salesin. D. 1996. “Comic
Chat”. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Conference
on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques
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Montola, M. 2005. “Designing Goals for Online Role-
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Views: Worlds in Play. Proceedings DVD of DiGRA
2005 Conference. Vancouver: Simon Fraser Univer-
sity.
Paiva, A., Prada, R., Chaves, R., Vala, M., Bullock, A.,
Andersson, G., & Höök, K. 2003. “Towards Tangibil-
ity in Gameplay: Building a Tangible Affective Inter-
face for a Computer Game”. In Proceedings of the 5th
International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces
(Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, November 05
- 07, 2003). ICMI ‘03. New York: ACM Press, 60-67.
Goldin-Meadow, S. 1999. “The Role of Gesture in Com-
munication and Thinking”. In Trends in Cognitive Sci-
ences. Vol. 3, No. 11, November, 1999, 422.
Vilhjálmsson, H. H. & Cassell, J. 1998. “BodyChat: Au-
tonomous Communicative Behaviors in Avatars”. In
K. P. Sycara & M. Wooldridge, (eds): Proceedings of
the Second International Conference on Autonomous
Agents (Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, May
10 - 13, 1998). New York: ACM Press, 269-276.
Ware, C. 2004. Information Visualization: Perception for
Design (2nd edition). San Francisco: Morgan Kauf-
mann.

Virtual Worlds:
Second Life: http://secondlife.com/
World of Warcraft: http://worldofwarcraft.com/
 12
Heli Rantavuo (heli.rantavuo@gmail.com)
Playing with Broadband: Circulating Digital Snapshots
This article addresses information and communi-
cation technologies (ICT’s) as tools for the playful
and creative circulation of digital snapshots. The
paper is based on interviews with sixteen Finnish
cameraphone and digital camera users in 2006,
and is part of a wider doctoral study. Through
examples of how the participants used ICT’s as
tools for playful snapshot circulation, I will sug-
gest that humour and playfulness were important
in creative ICT’s use and that mobile technologies
were less valued than computer-based ones. I will
also discuss why the photographers themselves
did not value their playful creativity.
From albums to online circulation
of snapshots
Digitalization and the introduction of cameras to
mobile phones have brought snapshot photography
into close connection with broadband media. While
interviewing cameraphone users for my study, most
of whom also used digital cameras, it caught my at-
tention that creative ways of using cameras and on-
line communication channels were related to playful
uses of the snapshots. Thus the question that I will
explore in this paper is: How do ICT’s serve as tools
for playful and creative circulation of snapshots? I
will first present the approach, methods, and the data
for this study. Next, I will show detailed examples
of how the participants in my study circulated snap-
shots playfully. I will then consider how the persons
evaluated and made choices in using the circulation
technologies. Before concluding, I will discuss why
the snapshot photographers themselves did not value
their creativity in the playful circulation of photos.
An underlying presumption behind this article is that
user creativity in the field of ICT’s is welcome and
encouraged, and that more knowledge is needed on
what invites it.
Theoretical framework, methods, and data
The frame of reference for this paper is the field of
domestication and cultural studies. Particularly, re-
search that studies how people make sense of digital
media technologies in the context of the home or the
household, as opposed to the context of paid work.
(See, for example, Bakardjieva, 2005; Berker et al.,
2006; Lally, 2002; Peteri, 2006; Silverstone & Had-
don, 1996; Uotinen, 2005). Relevant to my approach
considering playfulness are British ethnographic
works on the internet and mobile media. They stress
these “as continuous with and embedded in other
social spaces (...)” (Miller & Slater, 2001, 5) and as
technologies that are used to fulfill “desires that are
historically well established, but remain unfulfilled
because of the limitations of previous technologies.”
(Horst & Miller, 2006, 6) Methodologically, my ap-
proach on cameraphone use is explorative and stress-
es the user perspective. (Ito & Okabe, 2006; Okabe
et al., 2006)
Sixteen Finnish cameraphone photographers of
whom fourteen also used digital cameras participated
in the study. The group of participants consisted of
five 17-18-year-olds, two girls and three boys; five
20-35-year-olds, three women and two men; and
six 35-53-year-olds, two women and four men. The
adult participants came from professional fields rang-
ing from health care to the IT industry. None were
experts in digital photography or mobile or internet
technologies. All participants resided in urban areas in
Southern Finland. The research period during which
the participants made notes of all of their interactions
with digital photos, and saved the photos as far as it
was possible, varied from two to three weeks in the
spring 2006. Soon after, we met for the interview. I
analysed the data by writing case studies and seeking
for significant themes across the cases, and playful
and creative circulation of photos occured under all
of these themes of interpretation. As a technical note:
the quotes in this paper have been translated by the
author from Finnish, therefore they do not apppear in
quotation marks.
Circulating snapshots playfully
Raimo’s, 53, stevedore, most frequent cameraphone
activity was sending picture messages at work to
other stevedores. At the port, there were matters that
 13
the stevedores could not discuss in the radio frequen-
cy phones because the managers were connected to
the frequency as well. As a solution, the stevedores
used their own, private cameraphones to communi-
cate amongst themselves. The matters that needed to
be kept secret from the managers concerned, for ex-
ample, the way the stevedores organised their work,
or the selling of alcohol and cigarettes on the ships
in the port. Much of this communication was carried
out by a humorous exchange of photos. There was,
according to Raimo, a practical reason for exchang-
ing pictures instead of phonecalls, for example. Ste-
vedores work outdoors or in unheated spaces. This
makes it difficult to operate anything with your fin-
gers for long, and your glasses turn foggy when you
put them on. It can also be noisy at the port, which
makes it difficult to speak on the phone.
Although Raimo stressed the practical reasons for
sending photos instead of text, it was clear that there
were other reasons behind it as well. The men had
found a way to extend the verbal joking of the work-
place to a pictorial form of communication, using the
cameraphones as tools for it. Most of the pictures that
the stevedores exchanged were visual puns, whether
they were related to tasks at work or to topics relat-
ed to life outside the port. Raimo explained that the
photo messaging took the form of a question-answer
pattern. In this exchange, it was important, first, to be
able find a clever picture for the message, to be able
to react back with equal wittiness, and, a fundamental
factor, to be able to understand the joke. Frequently,
Raimo would use a photo that he already had on his
phone and that he may have had used many times
before in other contexts. The pictures were generally
either not accompanied by a caption or the caption
would not explain the picture but add to the joke.
For example, when someone on the radio frequency
had asked for the time, Raimo had sent him a photo
of the coffee machine, knowing that the recipient
would show it to others around him. Another photo
that Raimo told me had served as an answer to many
kinds of questions was a picture of a glass of brandy
(Figure 1). At the port, he had used it to answer ques-
tions about his plans for the weekend, and I received
the photo while arranging the study with the mes-
sage: Doctor’s orders - three days sick leave.
Figure 1. Glass of brandy with many significations
Another area of playful and creative cameraphone
snapshot circulation was planning, making, and
sending greetings. To send a birthday greeting to his
girlfriend, Sami, 28, had cut out a heart of red paper,
lit tealights, and taken numerous pictures to reach the
outcome he was looking for. (Figure 2)
Figure 2. Birthday greeting
Sami: Well, this was supposed to be, like, a picture
to Saara, what day was it again, yeah it was her
birthday. A picture that would convey that candles
are burning. The problem was, well, there was some
photographic technique problem-solving involved
[smiles]. So, the problem was that if I took a photo
and it was too dark, you couldn’t make anything out
of the picture. Although now that I uploaded them
to the computer, it looks better. On the phone, it
looked much worse. And if I added too much light,
you couldn’t see there were candles burning, [but
you could see] the whole background. So I was,
like, looking for the perfect [smiles] picture that
would be a nice birthday greeting. (...) I thought
I’d look for, like, a clichéd love feeling [emphasis
Sami’s] here, and what would be more of a cliché
than a candle and a heart.
The participants in my study who were creative
with their cameraphone photos, or used them play-
fully in their communication, did not restrict photo
messaging to phone-to-phone exchange. In fact, mul-
timedia messaging was a tool they normally sought
to avoid. The main reasons for this were the price that
was regarded to be too high, and the technical prob-
lems that people encountered when trying to send or
receive the messages. As an alternative route, older
adults preferred e-mail, while the younger genera-
tion preferred chat and instant messaging. Whatever
the tool, a common denominator to this circulation
became that it was no longer relevant whether the
photos had been taken with the cameraphone or the
digital camera, or downloaded. (Generally, the par-
ticipants were often careful to separate cameraphone
snaps from other kinds of photos.)
 14
Sami: Well, sending photos by e-mail might be
something a bit more official, like if I, if I have hap-
pened to snap a photo related to work, it’s more for
that. And the general use, which is not too common
either, is, I don’t know, with Skype maybe, well at
least through Messenger (...) through them with
my friends (...) something a bit more humourous
[laughter] I’ve been sending to friends at times.
HR: Umm, well, how do you happen to send them,
like, why do you send, how do you come to think
of sending a photo to someone?
S: Well, it’s about what we have chatted about
while instant messaging, for example, a mate (...)
went back to Vancouver, and in December, when he
had gone back, we chatted and he mentioned he had
some kind of a car there. It was pretty humourous,
this chatting of ours, so I had to make fun of him a
bit. I remembered I had a picture that I took when
I was interrailing in Greece in the summer. On one
of the islands there was a, you know, one of these
bicycles with a motor installed on it. So I remem-
bered I had this photo, and I send it to him, say-
ing, you must have something like this, then. And
another mate who happened to be in the same chat
(...) he sent something similar, a picture of a trac-
tor he had taken (laughs), in Spain, looking pretty
miserable. So, like, I’ve sent pictures to mock other
people [laughter].
Aaro, 52, had made a habit out of e-mailing cam-
eraphone photos and digital video clips that he found
amusing to his friends, colleagues, and acquaintanc-
es.
A: So, this mate is a head of research, or a professor at
a physics lab, running some research project, and be-
cause [the licence plate] said FYS-1, it was logically
related to physics, so I took a picture and e-mailed it to
him, like, is that your company car [laughter].
HR: Yeah.
A: And this, in turn, our estate manager is called
Jalonen, well, there it is, so I, it’s related to that. So,
this kind of pictures I take a lot. I mean, you can take a
photo right there in the situation.
Figure 3. Aaro’s play with words
Because Aaro used a company phone, he could
not send the photos directly from his phone. First
he had to transfer them to his computer, which he
did via bluetooth, to be able to send them out by e-
mail. The tone of the messages and the effort related
to them resembled the e-mail spam traffic that took
place among Aaro’s colleagues. While we were in
contact, Aaro sent me all the spam he received or
sent. The most popular themes had to do with sexual
insinuations, cars, or sports, and they were one-off
visual jokes. Some of the messages were elaborate
and time had been spent on constructing them. For
example, a mail titled Traffic round-a-bout included
a Word document where photos had been added of a
round-a-bout in Great Britain that the author of this
file had found particularly confusing. He had added
text, in fonts of different sizes and colours, to tell a
little story of the driver arriving to the crossroads and
becoming confused over how to drive through it.
The examples show that the participants were pre-
pared to see some trouble for, first, creating their play-
ful messages, and second, for finding the most suit-
able tool in each context to transmit their message.
The participants considered their audience, thought
about tools at the audience’s disposal, the level of
immediacy needed for the delivery of the message
and the response, and possible restrictions involved
at the recipient end. This way, they evaluated the op-
tions that the ICT tools at their disposal provided for
messaging. Sometimes, however, the evaluation lead
to the decision of not to use information networks at
all but to simply show the snapshots to their desired
audience from the camera, computer, or the phone.
Evaluating technologies for snapshot
circulation
The most frequently cited reason for not using mobile
multimedia messaging was the cost of it. However,
the participants were not in fact aware of exactly
how much the messages would cost, but the image
of multimedia messaging as expensive compared
to other services persisted. Evaluations concerning
price were not, surprisingly, made against the qual-
ity of the service. This was surprising because at the
same time, problems were frequently reported with
the service. It seemed that the active users were more
concerned with the problems in the service than with
the price. Raimo, with the most experience in multi-
media messaging, had for long debated problems in
the transmission of his messages with the operators
and his mobile phone manufacturer. Sami reported
problems caused by having to often switch his SIM-
card between two phones.
Sami: (...) I had to order [the missing settings] from
[my operator] and so on, blah blah, install them.
Plus, as a side comment, for the [operator] ser-
vice, you have to remember your user name and
password that I didn’t remember either, and I can
imagine how difficult it is for some Jack Smith
 15
[laughter] to get the settings right on their phone
[laughter.]
Sami’s complaint highlighted a common prob-
lem. Many users who would potentially wish to send
photo messages did not have an inkling on whether
they had the right settings installed in their phone, or
how they could install them if they did not. The same
concerned the use of infrared or bluetooth. In other
words, in the case of multimedia messaging, the lack
of services, or the bad quality of them, was a common
reason for devaluing this tool among cameraphone
users. Those who had other options and possessed the
skills to find a way around this problem, like Henri,
17, relied on other tools. His statement also shows
that apart from technical or economic reasons, people
sometimes decided not to use any kind of messaging
tool due to the importance of shared presence while
viewing the photos.
Henri: Well, I think the last time I sent a picture
message was at New Year’s, and I guess at Christ-
mastime I sent one to someone. It’s rare that I
send picture messages, I tend to send e-mail if I
have pictures that I want to send. (...) If I want to
transmit or send a photo, I do it directly from the
phone with the infrared or bluetooth connection, or
by e-mail or the Messenger. Sending picture mes-
sages, it’s, like, if you don’t have someone’s e-mail
address, or you know that they never read it, the
picture message is a more sure way to get the mes-
sage through right away. If you want to, say, wish
someone happy birthday, you might send a mes-
sage with a picture. But I don’t, if I take a photo of
something, I don’t usually send it to anyone.
HR: Why?
Henri: I do it on the computer, with the Messenger.
Because of the cost. Well, it’s not so expensive, but
it’s just not my thing. I’d rather say, come online
and you’ll get a few photos, like. Much easier.
Neater.
Playful circulation of snapshots as
“just playing”
In association to being playful, during the study, I no-
ticed a contradiction between the way that the playful
moments or messages were played down in words,
and the manner in which they were told. Being play-
ful with the cameras and photos was mentioned in
passing, and as a response to further questions, the
participants convinced me it was “just playing”, noth-
ing important to discuss at length. The playfulness,
however, always took place between people who
were very close to each other, and I sensed a feeling
of joy and enjoyment whenever I was told about these
events in the interviews. The moments and messag-
ing were also remembered very well. However, the
participants never explicitly acknowledged them as
important, memorable, or even simply “fun” without
any reservations. Cameraphone use in its totality, for
example, was often called “just playing.” The par-
ticipant wanted to show that she or he was aware of
the fact that looking at the photos on the phone, for
example, was not useful. Cameraphone use was thus
judged by the average Western notion that morally
justified use of computers and other ICT’s is goal-ori-
ented and purposeful use where tasks are performed
(see, for example, Hartmann 2005, 141-158). What I
wish to bring forth is that while the notion of the cre-
ative use of ICT tools, and the value of such creativ-
ity, may be obvious to researchers in the field, it is not
always that to the users – at least when associated to
playfulness. As circulating snapshots in both private
and public internet messaging increases, however,
ICT’s may gain new roles and increased value in the
process as tools for fun. The proliferation of internet
picture galleries for social networking, for example,
point to this direction.
Conclusions
The examples of humourous and playful circulation
of snapshots show that ICT’s can be tools for creative
and surprising communication in workplaces, in inti-
mate relationships, and among friends. It seems that
the users of chat and instant messaging services were
the most satisfied with the support that these applica-
tions provided for their communication and creativ-
ity. Even e-mail, which potentially involves a long
delay in delivering the message, was seen as a more
convenient medium than the mobile multimedia mes-
sage for circulating humorous messages.
Mobile multimedia messaging entails several
problems from the perspective of enabling the user’s
creativity in photo circulation. First, it has the image
of an expensive service. Second, there is a contradic-
tion in providing an easy user interface for sending
the messages, on one hand, but making it difficult to
manage the settings needed for sending pictures, on
the other. Furthermore, without a reaction from the
recipient, the sender is unaware whether the message
has been delivered. It is also easier, and cheaper, to
include multiple recipients to the message in online
than in mobile environments, and the pace of the ex-
change of messages is quicker in the former than in
the latter – both important elements in the instances
of playful communication with pictures online that
were reported in my study.
Apart from technical issues, there are cultural and
social issues that potentially encourage or restrict cre-
ative uses of ICT’s. The cameraphone, for example,
is still seen by many as a gagdet, without the same ca-
pacity to fulfill the tasks and desires of its user as the
personal computer is seen to have. Among the youth
in my study, this seemed to lead to valuing the cre-
ative use of online internet applications more than the
creative uses of the cameraphone and mobile mes-
saging, which were downplayed as “just playing.”
 16

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 17
Brenda Castro (BrendaCastroPelayo@gmail.com)
The Virtual Art Garden:
A Case Study of User-centered
Graphical User Interface Design
This paper describes the methodology used to
design a tool that aims at motivating virtual com-
munities of art education or related fields of study
to share visual material and work collaboratively.
The Virtual Art Garden is a Graphical User Inter-
face (GUI) that provides information about visual
works (or artworks) which are the practical out-
comes of students of art and design.
In the interface of the Virtual Art Garden, the art-
works are represented through a map view in the com-
puter screen through a web-based system. Through
the interface of the Virtual Art Garden, the user group
generates the visual aspect of the interface by orga-
nizing freely the images that conform it, as well as by
linking artworks together with connecting lines. This
freedom of structuring a view map makes it possible
for the users to adjust the categorization of the visual
information depending on their needs.
Motivation
The decision to consider the doability of this project
is based in personal interests on the fields of Arts and
Design to be integrated efficiently in virtual programs
of study. The project is grounded in needs analysis
and user observations from a community of virtual
learning in the field of Art Education at the Universi-
ty of Art and Design Helsinki. The basic needs deter-
mined in those studies were: improve collaborative
practices and motivate participatory learning through
visual based interfaces and through the building of
shared identities.
The user group is that of virtual groups of art edu-
cation. In this community, the use of virtual environ-
ments and of visual communication are recurrent and
one can find good possibilities of taking advantage
of emerging tools for online communication. The
design process began with different approaches con-
sidering the advantages and weaknesses of mobile
devices, web applications, and virtual tools for the
design of those concrete needs detected. In this paper
the focus is the final outcome of the design process,
which is a web-based tool for sharing artworks and
communicating around them.
Designing tools in virtual communities
Tools, in general terms, have the functionality of
making tasks easier to perform. Nowadays, the need
of performing tasks is very much related to informa-
tion and communication: today’s society has the need
to constantly produce knowledge and to communi-
cate it in order to apply it in practical environments.
The design of the tool that is described in this paper
is meant to facilitate tasks related to organization and
communication of objects of information. The objec-
tive is to propitiate knowledge building after an ad-
equate visualization of these objects of information.
Knowledge building, a term which refers to the
way societies learn in a world of information reach-
able through pervasive media (Scardamalia 2003), is
a result of a selective gathering of data and its appli-
cation into real situations. Knowledge is created from
social needs and therefore it results on the basis of
social development. The process of creating knowl-
edge is nowadays strictly related to digital media: the
way communities emerge and evolve over systems of
information and communication.
The possibilities of virtual environments make of
modern knowledge an undeniably community based
experience (Capurro 1986). Virtual communities
determine the hermeneutics of society as a collab-
orative process of selecting information and build-
ing meaning out of it, in relation to the diversity that
comprises those communities. Innovative tools are
core in the transformation of cultures. Today, digital
online tools that provide means of communication in
a global scale not only transform cultures that exist
independently from each other; they propitiate nexus
between communities that are almost anywhere and
 18
lead to a conceptualization of a global society, based
on access to information through digital technolo-
gies.
The “global informational society” (Castells 2000)
is transforming all the time around forthcoming tech-
nologies. The design of technological tools shapes
very much this transformation; in the way that the
tools provide elements that guide the way people
interact with the available information. Diversity
between members of communities –– and between
communities –– that interact pervasively is very rich
for positive transformations in the informational so-
ciety.
In order for a tool to be efficient, in general terms, it
ought to provide visible benefits to the users through
a simple and self-explicit mechanism (Shneiderman
1998; Hix & Hartson 1993). This applies to tools of
all kind of technologies, both to physical (e.g. a pen-
cil) and to digital (e.g. a word processor). When a
tool is efficient and it manages to be attached to a
community, it influences social transformations and
becomes a symbol that represents certain character-
istics of the community, the users and their whole so-
cial, historical, and economical environment. Groups
of people create, accept, adjust, and (sometimes) de-
pend on innovations; efficient tools are innovative ar-
tifacts that determine the productivity and growth of
a community: coexistence, common understanding,
and similar aims.
The constant development of tools and people’s
adopting and adapting those tools to their daily lives,
make society dynamic, always transforming through
the new ways in which tasks are performed. People
evolve with the impact of the tools they commonly
use, and so, they also modify those tools as a process
of understanding their benefits (Krippendorff 2006).
In that sense, tools become a representation of the
community using them, they become objects of iden-
tity.
The Virtual Art Garden is conceptualized as a tool
that approaches the user group through identity. The
evolution of identities within a virtual community is
a collective process of participatory behavior. Online
communities shape throughout internal activities and
the way in which members interact to perform those
activities is very much influenced by the virtual en-
vironment, by its symbolic and its functional char-
acteristics. The interaction design of the Virtual Art
Garden intends to determine the feasibility of partici-
patory behavior.
Semiology of the Virtual Art Garden
Communication processes happen through symbolic
systems that cannot be separated from the cultural
context in which they take place. Visual communica-
tion is always coded and those codes allow common
understanding in society (Kress & Leeuwen 1998).
Understanding means de-codifying and re-codifying
existing information into personal mental representa-
tions.
Through a process of association, new concepts in-
tegrate with assimilated ideas to construct new inter-
pretations. This conforms a set of both, abstract and
concrete mental representations that can be trans-
formed into language –– spoken, written, or graphic
–– through the use of universal conventions (signs).
This is fundamental to consider in the design of in-
teractive systems, where communication depends on
the user’s actions over a digital interface, which has
to be understood, learnt, and identified by the user.
A visual interface works as an object of interaction
that gathers information from a group of users (and
sometimes from other sources) and (re)presents it in
a codified way. An interface is something that acts “in
between”: between people, between individuals and
information; and this aspect of being in between is at
the same time path and barrier. Through its main char-
acteristics of interactivity, dynamics, and autonomy,
an interface in the context of computers and virtual
environments tend to amplify users’ mind (Krippen-
dorff 2006). When designed for learning communi-
ties, graphical user interfaces must act as a simplified
symbolic system of information-communication that
enhances participation of the community and opens
possibilities of achieving personal and common cog-
nitive results.
The use of interface design that enables visualiza-
tion of hierarchies and categorization of informa-
tion under a codified structure is necessary in virtual
networks. The fact that categorization depends or is
manipulable by the users can also work as a factor of
motivation in the process of building knowledge and
of creating a meaningful virtual environment where
information is constantly evolving, dynamically or-
ganized, always accessible, and productive.
User-centered design
The Virtual Art Garden aims at experimenting and
introducing the following statement: Learning prac-
tices in virtual communities can be improved by us-
er-centered interfaces that consider the importance of
social identities to encourage the cognitive develop-
ment of individuals as part of a social system.
Designing tools by having a specific user group in
mind can bring more benefits than the usual interest
of solving concrete needs. By studying the commu-
nity that will be using the tool, it is expected to come
up with a design solution that can be easily accepted
by the users and incorporated to their daily practic-
es. Further more, it allows the possibility of finding
common interests or behaviours that experimenting
with interfaces arise.
“User-centered design consists in more than ob-
serving and interviewing the users” (Hix & Hartson
1993, 30); getting to know the users in a deep way
 19
leads to creative and innovative design solutions.
User studies certainly require a complex of human
resources to get a clear and precise set of informa-
tion out of the user group. Understanding user tasks,
capabilities, and preferences (Preece 2000) are key
to develop the right tools that an online community
demands.
Methodology
The evolution of this project encompasses several
stages: from the determination of the user group and
user observation and analysis, to the sketching of
the different approaches of the concept idea, and till
the resolution of the final concept and its progress
towards a hi-fi prototype. The last stages of the de-
sign process consisted on the interaction design for
user-user and system-user experiences, and on the vi-
sualization of the tool from a functional approach (by
considering tasks and features).
The methodology used for the design process con-
sidered the premise that virtual environments must be
experimental rather than expectant. This means that
the user must have certain freedom of interaction. To
achieve this, the interface should provide a set of ob-
jects of information that members of the community
can freely decide how to use. Needs and motivations
are changing constantly and designs have to be adapt-
able to the practical experiences of human-computer
interaction.
Figure 1. Illustration of the methodology used after the user studies.
A set of metaphors were sketched and analyzed
during the concept design as a process of brainstorm-
ing. These metaphors were the result of the user
studies. The most determinant findings from that
brainstorming phase were then considered in a final
metaphorical approach of the design solution, there-
fore the title of this work is strictly related to the use
of those metaphors.
Metaphors
An approach of digital technologies through effec-
tive use of metaphors as models implies natural inter-
action between man and machine: “The use of visual
metaphors (...) informs the design process as much
as it enables users’ understanding” (Krippendorff
2006, 99). The role of rhetoric in designing digital
media solutions is not anymore that of persuading
as in Aristotelian times, neither that of illustrating in
order to magnify the importance or the beauty of an
idea; in digital media design, rhetoric is about the use
of appropriate tangible phenomena as a ground (as
a model) to create understanding between users and
technologies.
By using situations, words, pictures, and metaphors
that are natural and known to most users, a user’s ex-
pectations about an interface are supported, and cog-
nitive directness is increased (Hix & Hartson 1993).
Thinking of metaphors in the field of mediated com-
munication and interaction design helps to create a
natural approach to human needs, thus, by generating
a spontaneous association between the new artifact
that is being designed and common places that are
immediately identified by the users as human beings
living in certain context.
Metaphors are very much related to artifacts, in the
sense that natural phenomena has inspired technolo-
gies and served as a model in the designing of tools.
Richard Coyne sees this inspiration as a two sides
effect: “technologies are described biologically and
biology is sometimes understood in terms of technol-
ogies” (Coyne 1995, 280). It is a human nature to use
signs as an understanding of phenomena, to explain
something through examples and comparisons. The
use of rhetoric in this sense, in the context of inter-
face design, relates to the purpose of finding natural
and ergonomic associations between the medium and
the human action.
The Virtual Art Garden
The selected metaphor refers to the title of this paper,
the Art Garden, and is a direct result of the user stud-
ies. The initial association of the project with a gar-
den comes from the idea of sharing a place that starts
as an empty field and can be grown in beauty and
harmony with combined effort and commitment.
This metaphor is grounded in the idea that each art-
work is a very particular piece of creation, as a plant,
 20
that even if it belongs to a specific category it will
never have an exact replica. Plants are seed and need
to be taken care of so they can grow nice and pretty.
A plant little by little changes its form, and it contrib-
utes to the flourishing and transformation of the gar-
den as a whole. As in a field owned by several experi-
mental gardeners, they can always grow more or they
can even cut, but with the understanding of sharing a
common space that has to become a complex experi-
ence besides that of the of each single element.
Figure 2. First sketch. Each square represents a different art-
work, connected with paths of selected width and color.
In the garden interface, paths follow patterns of
identity and personal interests. Different paths can
be drawn between artworks to express emotional or
technical associations. A garden, as a natural envi-
ronment immersed in the urban space gives us cer-
tain feeling of relief as a small way out from rush
and stress. The Virtual Art Garden should work in a
similar way, as a place for enjoyment after fulfilling
the duties of studies. From a basis of intrinsic moti-
vation, a place like this can be used for stimulating
learning activities in a social, friendly way.
The main characteristic of the digital garden is that
it enables the collaborative building of identities by a
generative visual environment. Like in the architec-
tural design of a botanic park, paths become essential.
If one artwork is left alone without any path leading
to it or way out from it, the artwork will be less vis-
ited, and therefore, less commented. On the contrary,
a work that has many ways in and out will be more
visited and thus, will receive constant feedback.
The Art Garden should act as a place where users
participate freely and interact around a joint creativ-
ity. Following a metaphorical approach, the aspect
of identity and collaboration is searched through a
graphical user interface taking advantage of web-
based technologies and of the association with a
common physical space.
Concept aesthetics
A visual element (as almost anything related to hu-
man perception) is perceived differently from one
person to the other depending on individual mental
associations and on the cultural context that the in-
dividual is immersed on. Aesthetic perception is an
individual experience but seeks always a universal
agreement (Kant 1987). Aesthetic experiences, that
ever since Plato have been discussed in relation to
beauty and perception, refers to the emotional reac-
tion that an individual has after an object or a repre-
sentation of an object. It is an interactive experience
between the individual and the object, or more likely,
the “interdependence among the elements of an ob-
ject” (Moynihan & Mehrabian 1981, 323).
From the motivational perspective, the aspect of
aesthetic plays an important role, as it is strictly relat-
ed to human emotional activity; which is subjective
but at the same time aims at being shared. From the
way the virtual art garden works, a common building
of a visual interface represents the aspect of moti-
vation that is propitiated through aesthetics. Trying
to avoid the cliché of design that represents beauty,
the graphics are clean enough to let the user create
their own aesthetics, or to experience their own idea
of beauty, ugly, serious, funny, etc.
To motivate the community, the interface features
a common visualization created from individual im-
ages as a result of collaborative work. Aesthetic ex-
periences are individual but are determined socially;
in this sense, participants of the Virtual Art Garden
are expected to react emotionally to the visual inter-
face that is generated within a context. Through these
experiences, a visual interface influences the activity
of the group members and this is understood in terms
of social learning as a factor of motivation. The way
the Virtual Art Garden approaches aesthetics is by
the interaction of the users with the interface, or most
likely, with the users themselves through the inter-
face. This is comparable to the vision of aesthetics
proposed by Krippendorff; which focuses in the aes-
thetic experience as an interaction of the user with
the artifact (Krippendorff 2006) that is external to the
expressive purposes of the designer.
Expected contributions through the
Virtual Art Garden
The concept of the interface is based in two main
ideas: identity and motivation; which are used in
terms of the hypothesis to improve learning practices
that are virtual and community based. The elements
of identity are mostly the artworks appearing in the
interface as a map. The artworks alone are the objects
of information; they carry feedback and other data.
The placement of these artworks is also an object of
information on itself, in the sense that they act as a
pattern of recognition within the community. The
placement in the map is visual information about the
community, its identity and activity.
Users will be adding images and linking them with
each other creating intentionally or non intention-
 21
ally an object of their own. This is the main aspect
within identity matters; the way the interface grows
and evolves is through a process of participants’ rec-
ognition in which the users become represented as a
community.
Motivation is the second basic purpose of the proj-
ect. The interface itself should work as a motiva-
tional element by influencing the participants to get
involved in the evolution of the visual space. Other
elements that are directly related to the artworks, as
feedback comments, work as motivation factors as
well. Paths opened from artwork to artwork are also
a means of motivation.
Figure 3. Next page. Schema of the possible progress of the visual
interface with users’ activity.
Conclusions
Designing technologies, technological tools and ap-
plications, imply transforming thinking processes and
behavior, which demand, as a result, new thinking
and understanding of those technologies. Designing
successful tools for digital media can be approached
as an iterative design process that makes use of ex-
ploratory behavior. An iterative method of practi-
cal experimentation that allows, and even expects,
continuous reshaping of a tool. The design of virtual
tools can take advantage of experimenting with ideas
that can be reshaped by the users or with direct users’
feedback.
The presence of the user in the design process is
now almost a requisite. Following and reinterpreting
what Eskelinen and Koskimaa (2002, in Introduc-
tion) describe as functional theory of media, concep-
tual designers do not need to consider how a medium
works or what are its limitations, but rather how it is
practically used an how it is integrated to people’s
emotions, body, and daily activities; something that
is done by the individuals themselves, through real
experiences with the technology.
Collaborative processes are more than ever taking
the advantage of cultural and knowledge diversity,
and are integrating developers and users of tools in
a joint development, where “the aim is to progress in
a collaborative way towards a global sustainability”
(Himanen 2004, 19). The project of the Virtual Art
Garden is grounded in the aspect of collaboration as
an aim in the user experience, but the design itself is
also a collaborative process: experiences and knowl-
edge from people in different fields, mainly those of
Art Education who have been involved as user group,
have been influencing the design process through all
its phases.
A diversity of knowledge and experiences are
gathered in this project from the beginning, until it is
finally shaped as a prototype in an interesting collab-
orative implementation taking place through virtual
means between two people located at more than ten
thousand kilometers away. This aspect can be used as
an example to demonstrate the possibilities of collab-
orative processes that can be achieved through vir-
tual environments breaking distance boundaries and
merging cultural interests.
Bibliography
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nomenology and Technology (Updated version 2002).
 22

http://www.capurro.de/herminf.html. Free translation

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bridge: MIT Press.
Moynihan, C. & Mehrabian, A. 1981. “The Psychologi-
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London: Addison-Wesley.
 23
Joanna Saad-Sulonen (joanna.saad-sulonen@taik.fi)
First Steps Towards Designing the “Urban Mediator”
This paper reflects on the very first steps taken
by our multidisciplinary research team to address
the design of what we have called “Urban Media-
tor”; an open framework and specific tools for
building connections between citizens and city
administrations, making all knowledge mutually
accessible.
Introduction
The design of Urban Mediator is part of the work the
ARKI [1] Icing research team will produce for the
Icing research project. Icing, an acronym for Innova-
tive Cities for the Next Generation, is a 6th framework
programme EU funded IST (Information Society
Technologies) project, scheduled to run from January
2006 to June 2008.
According to the project’s official description on
work, Icing’s goal is to “research concepts of e-Gov-
ernment based on a multimodal, multi-access ap-
proach to a ‘thin-skinned City’ that is sensitive to the
citizen and to the environment, using mobile devices,
universal access gateways, social software and envi-
ronmental sensors.”
The project partners include city councils, univer-
sities and telecom operators from Barcelona, Dublin
and Helsinki. The Finnish partners are the City of
Helsinki and the University of Art and Design Hel-
sinki.
New tools for city-citizen interaction
Digital technologies have enabled the development of
new tools for citizen participation. Until now, Inter-
net-based services for citizens have been at the heart
of various local and European e-government and e-
participation projects (Saad-Sulonen 2005). There
is however, growing interest in considering multi-
modal and multi-access concepts for e-participation,
with special interest in potentials presented by mo-
bile technologies. Mobile devices have become com-
monplace for urbanites around the world: we carry
our mobile phones with us and use them everywhere.
Technology developers are already loading personal
mobile devices with ubiquitous, pervasive, proxim-
ity and locative technologies; making it possible to
also interact with the everyday physical environment.
Urban space is becoming a new locus for digitally
mediated entertainment and information sharing. The
potential is also open for these new technologies to
offer new interaction modes for citizens and city ad-
ministrations.
Icing’s goal is to explore these new possibilities
by bringing forth real-time and “in-situ” interaction
possibilities for knowledge exchange: official knowl-
edge about the city and citizens knowledge that is
built through their everyday experience of the city.
Urban Mediator – first thoughts
Urban Mediator is the key concept to be developed in
Helsinki’s test-bed of Arabianranta. It is to be devel-
oped as a prototype for the Icing project.
The initial ideas for the concept of the Urban Me-
diator are that of a system and an interface that would
facilitate interaction between citizens and city au-
thorities and channel this interaction to existing city
services. The idea is therefore not to create yet an-
other interaction channel, like the various websites,
portals or discussion forums, but rather come up with
a system that would help citizens know of the exist-
ing channels and services and help them decide in
what way they’d want to interact with the official
city. Urban Mediator would make it possible for peo-
ple to send information, questions, complaints, and
remarks regarding their neighborhood, linking them
to existing interaction channels, as well as receive
both official and non-official information. Citizens,
residents associations as well as various city admin-
istrations are plugged to the Urban Mediator, making
it easier for them to reach the information they need
regarding the city, when they want it and where they
want it.
Integrating the interaction possibilities with loca-
tive technologies extends it also to the experienced
space of the city itself. The Urban Mediator extends
therefore existing web-based citizen-authorities
 24
bridge into the urban space as experienced everyday
by different people - in a way, extend the interface for
citizen participation and involvement, to the every-
day experience of urban life.
The first ideas linked to the idea of Urban Media-
tor therefore reflect both the framework of the Icing
project – a IST project addressing objectives of Pri-
ority 2.4.9 ICT research for Innovative Government
[2] – and the research and design interests of the re-
search team – understanding how “social” factors as
well extending the interface for citizen participation
and involvement to the everyday experience of ur-
ban life could invigorate eGovernment services and
eParticipation. Ideas for what design areas would
be linked to the development of the Urban Media-
tor were therefore the following: interactive maps for
information representation and interface possibilities
(tools for city administration and planners), locative
technologies for interaction in urban space and social
software for citizen-driven, collaborative construc-
tion of the information space.
Methodology
The design process initiated to develop the initial
“fuzzy” Urban Mediator concept into a tangible de-
sign solution starts with gathering ethnographic ma-
terial as a way of understanding the needs of the main
stakeholders; citizens (residents) and city office em-
ployees, as well as engaging them, from the very start
of the design process, as active actors in the design
process. The second step is building a series of sce-
narios that are grounded in the ethnographic findings
and also provide a set of tools to help put forward
further design tasks and technological features inves-
tigations.
Initial background ethnography
Two areas in Helsinki were chosen to conduct eth-
nographic studies in: the Icing test-bed area of Ara-
bianranta as a well as the area of Malminkartano at
the north-west edge of the Helsinki municipal area.
The area of Malminkartano was chosen in addition
to the official testbed area of Arabianranta because,
contrary to Arabianranta, it is an old established resi-
dential area and can give insight on issues that might
rise in Arabianranta in the future.
The initial round of ethnographic studies consisted
of a series of interviews with employees from various
city offices (Helsinki City Planning, Public Works,
Social Services, Health Services), with resident com-
munities and with key figures in the two areas. Fur-
thermore, a small neighborhood documentation ex-
periment and workshop was organized with a specific
group of residents in Arabianranta, the moderators.
[3]
This round of ethnographic studies provided a gen-
eral understanding of how residents and city office
employees address and understand the areas of Ara-
bianranta and Malminkartano, and what kind of city/
citizen interactions possibilities exist, are success-
ful, are missing or would be needed. This first back-
ground ethnography also laid the ground for engag-
ing the stakeholders in the design process, early on.
Scenario building
The following step was to gather and analyze the eth-
nographic material collected so far and extract from
them themes with most potential to be used, as ingre-
dients for building scenarios.
Through building scenarios, we try to bring to-
gether the relevant information for building a com-
mon understanding of what Urban Mediator would
be. Scenarios also act as the reference material for
our internal team of social scientists, designers and
software developers.
Scenarios are also tools of “reflection in action”
(Schön 1983, Carroll 1999). They can help identify
elements of the envisioned system the way these ele-
ments translate social features.
Coming up with a series of scenarios also helped
keep the holistic view of the envisioned system in
mind, the various stakeholders and their different
needs as well as the different possible modes of in-
teractions.
Scenario 1: State of the Arabianranta Park
This scenario was inspired by pictures and comments
sent by a moderator who volunteered to take part in
the neighborhood documentation experiment that
took place in February 2006.
Lilja (35) is a resident of the newly developed area
of Arabianranta in Helsinki. She is walking her dog in
the morning, by an area that is supposed to be a park.
Lilja notices the poor state of this park area (it is just
an empty plot of land) and thinks that it’s really unfor-
tunate that nothing is being done to make it better. The
bad condition of this plot of land only attracts drunken
people and youths who have no other places to go now,
especially in the evenings. Lilja thinks: “When is this
going to be taken care of?”
Lilja wants to react in real time, on the spot: she
wants to know why the situation of this park is like
that and what are the plans for the future regarding
this park?
Lilja uses her mobile phone to access the Urban Me-
diator for her area. The system recognizes her loca-
tion. She then types the keyword “park” and gets links
to discussions and information related specifically to
parks in the area she’s in. She finds out that the Public
Works Department had responded to residents’ ques-
tions regarding the park and had explained that noth-
ing can be done before one year. She also finds out that
a group of residents had documented the rubbish left
in the “park”.
Lilja decides to contact the other residents: “This
park problem can’t be left for one year! Why can’t we,
the residents, propose an alternative solution for the
next year?”
 25
Scenario 2: My Parking-spot Info
This scenario was inspired by pictures and comments
sent by a moderator who volunteered to take part in
the neighborhood documentation experiment that
took place in February 2006, as well as by observa-
tions done by the research team members in Arabi-
anranta.
Because of the construction work going on in Ara-
bianranta, things change unexpectedly: for example
the bus stop locations might shift because of new con-
struction work, or parking spaces can become illegal
because they’d interfere with the works.
Lasse has a car and decided to subscribe to informa-
tion about the legal parking spots around his building
block. By subscribing, he gets information, to his email
or to his mobile phone about any plans or changes that
might affect the parking spots, for example informa-
tion about construction work that will “remove” some
spot (when the work will starts and when it is sup-
posed to end), or information about the dates when the
snow plough will come and therefore the parking spots
should be emptied etc.
Lasse also subscribed to a residents group initiative
that let them negotiate “sharing” parking spots in re-
lation to their schedule for car use.
Scenario 3: Planner interested in people’s local
knowledge
This scenario is inspired by comments made by a
Helsinki city planner, during a meeting / interview in
February 2006.
Sari is a planner from the City Planning Office. Cur-
rently, Sari is busy, working on the planning of a new
residential area. Even though this is a new area, she
always wants to stay informed about what inhabitants
of the area think about their living environment and
what are the current issues in the area. Sari believes
that it is important for a planner to build a overall un-
derstanding of the area she works on, especially that
she has only been two years working in that area. Sari
uses the interactive map of the Urban Mediator system
of this area to get a quick overview of what are the
main issues of concern for the inhabitants right now.
She likes it that she can quickly see on the map see
which areas as well as which topics are “hot”. She can
also directly link to the discussions and the messages.
She sometimes answers residents’ questions using
this channel, but she does that voluntarily. She knows
many other planners who don’t do that because they’re
afraid that people will harass them with further ques-
tions. The formal way to interact with inhabitants is a
bit different: the interaction planner follows the area’s
Urban Mediator and channels questions to the specific
planners if needed.
Scenario 4: Social worker and pre-emptive social
care
This scenario is inspired by comments made by a
Helsinki city planner, during a meeting / interview in
February 2006.
Antti is a social worker working in the greater Ara-
bianranta area. He’s been in charge of the pre-emptive
social care experiment in the area. He tries to find out
about possible problems before they get very big. He
looks into the sociotope map of the Arabianranta area
and sees that there are a lot of complaints about the
high school kids of the area spending their weekends
drinking in the park. He remembers hearing parents
in the area being concerned about there not being any
supervised spaces (youth centers etc) in the area.
He looks at another layer of the map -- the layer of
the department of real estate- to get information about
the owners of some possible buildings where a youth
center could be placed.
Next steps
The initial ideas for using interactive maps, locative
technologies and social software can already be tak-
en a step further and be represented in the following
fashion, as per Fig 1.
Figure 1. Urban Mediator
The four scenarios developed by our research team
already give an idea of relevant directions for design
effort:
• provide citizens with the possibility to re-
quest for location-specific information, on the
spot (see scenario 1)
• provide citizens with the possibility to sub-
scribe to location-specific information (sce-
nario 2)
• provide a way to “harvest” existing local in-
formation (scenarios 1, 3 and 4)
• provide city office employees, for example
city planners or social workers, with tools that
facilitate their access to local information,
helping them in taking decisions (scenario 3
and 4)
 26

These themes will be explored further through the
continuing ethnographic information gathering pro-
cess addressing various communities. This process
will however become more clearly part of the itera-
tive co-design process for developing Urban Media-
tor. Co-design workshops and meetings will be de-
veloped and then organized to involve the different
stakeholders in the development process of the Urban
Mediator, building up on the themes gathered from
the scenarios.
These stakeholders will consist of active partici-
pants that have expressed interest in collaborating in
developing the Urban Mediator during the prelimi-
nary ethnography rounds. Parallel to that, public in-
teractive experiments open to the general public will
also be organized in Arabianranta and Malminkar-
tano, also as a way of working out the design themes
and involving people in the co-design process, as
well as opening up the Icing project ideas to the gen-
eral public.
The co-design process will eventually help the
design team to identify and further develop relevant
design building blocks for the Urban Mediator, to
eventually come up with a working prototype.
Design involvement in the Icing project, during the
initial phase of project building for approval by the
EU.
Bibliography
Carroll, J. 1999. “Five Reasons for Scenario-Based De-
sign”. In Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International
Conference on System Sciences (January 5-8, 1999).
Maui, Hawaii, 3053-3054.
Information Society Technologies portal. 2004. 2.4.9
ICT research for innovative Government [online]
http://www.cordis.lu/ist/workprogramme/wp0506_
en/2_4_9.htm, accessed 25.04.2006
Saad-Sulonen, J. 2005. “Interactions at the Boundaries:
a Design Research Exploration Around Urban Space,
Digital Media and Public Participation”. In Proceed-
ings of the Life in the Urban Landscape. International
Conference for Integrating Urban Knowledge & Prac-
tice (May 29-June 3 2005). Gothenburg, Sweden. [CD-
ROM] Gothenburg: Formas.
Schön, D. 1983. The Reflective Practitioner: How Profes-
sionals Think in Action. New York: Basis Books.

Notes

[1] The ARKI research group (http://arki.uiah.fi) at

the Media Lab/School of Digital Design of the Uni-
versity of Art and Design Helsinki is a multidisci-
plinary research group that focuses on understanding
digitalization in society; the potentials as well as the
drawbacks it creates in the context of everyday life.

[2] The focuses of Priority 2.4.9 that Icing addresses

are: 1) Innovative ICTs for democratic involvement,
in particular eParticipation, 2) Intelligent, inclusive
and personalised eGovernment services, 3) Adaptive
and proactive eGovernment support systems (Infor-
mation Society Technologies portal 2004)

[3] A moderator is a resident of a building that

voluntarily takes up the job of moderating the build-
ings web pages. There are 20 residential buildings in
Arabianranta that have a moderator moderating their
building’s own web pages. These web pages are set
up and hosted by the Helsinki Virtual Village Portal
of Arabianranta. This portal also offers specific ser-
vices for registered users, residents and companies
in the area.

Acknowledgements

The research work for the period of January 2006 to

May 2006 was done through a group effort, involving
the following ARKI research group members: Taina
Rajanti, Iina Oilinki, Tommi Raivio, Roman Suzi, Jo-
anna Saad-Sulonen.
Taina Rajanti, Kari-Hans Kommonen and Joanna
Saad-Sulonen have been the main contributors to
provide the text describing the University of Art and
 27
Mariana Salgado (msalgado@taik.fi)
Anna Salmi (asalmi@taik.fi)
Use of Clay in the Dialogue with the Visually Impaired
The topic of this paper is the tools used for de-
signing accessible solutions in the context of mu-
seum exhibitions. The paper focuses on the use
of clay pieces during two participatory design
workshops held in Ateneum Museum in 2005. In
addition we explain how we use cards and affinity
diagrams for analyzing the results. Based on the
diagrams produced we describe some features
that are relevant for visually impaired people in
exhibitions.
The analysis of the clay pieces together with the
participants’ oral interpretations is an exploration into
visually impaired people’s perceptions in the context
of museums. Emotions and space were the central
topics that came up from this process of organizing
the workshops and making sense of the material we
collected.
From this analysis we develop preliminary sug-
gestions for planning future dialogues with visually
impaired people in this particular context.
Introduction
As part of our process in the design of an interactive
tool for the visually impaired people’s community
we posed some questions: how to engage with this
community in order to understand their needs in the
context of a museum visit? How to clarify questions
about accessibility that deal with emotions?
In an attempt to look for these answers we orga-
nized two workshops during 2005 in Ateneum Art
Museum, The Finnish National Art Gallery, in Hel-
sinki. The workshops were based on Participatory
Design methodologies. Researchers such as Hult-
crantz and Ibrahim have been using workshops of
this type in order to evaluate future concepts (Hult-
crantz & Ibrahim 2002, 344-348). Our workshops
were based on the model that Taxén proposed for
introducing participatory design in museums (Taxén
2004, 204-213). Taxén describes methods for evalu-
ating museum exhibits and for developing exhibition
concepts.
Two workshops were organized as part of the re-
search activities of the project Äänijälki [1].This
project consists of an interactive audio service for
museums that allows the exchange of comments
within present, past visitors and museum staff. These
comments relate to the pieces in the exhibition and
the navigation inside the museum.
Äänijälki is an interactive audio service for muse-
ums that allows the exchange of comments within
present, past visitors and museum staff. These com-
ments relate to the pieces in the exhibition and the
navigation inside the museum. “Äänijälki will be
used for sharing hints about the experience of going
to and being in an exhibition. The goal is to motivate
visually impaired people to visit museums by provid-
ing a tool to get information about museum spaces
and exhibitions, with their ‘comments.’ ” (Salgado
& Kellokoski 2005, 10-17). It is now in a prototype
stage.
Participants did not get to use the actual Äänijälki
PDA application in the workshops. They were in-
formed about the concept and basic functionality. In
addition the workshops are an attempt to gather re-
search material that can be useful for the project and
to obtain inspirational ideas for making museums ac-
cessible for the visually impaired people’s communi-
ty. The aim of the workshops is to enable us designers
to create a thorough understanding of the users’, their
opinions, emotions and the challenges that they face
when visiting museums.
Description and comparison of the situations
The workshops were planned in order to use the au-
dio material produced in them as part of the content
of Äänijälki. We have video and audio documenta-
tion of both workshops.
We organized these two workshops in different
ways. In the case of the first one we sent a letter
through a mailing list of visually impaired people
advertising the workshop and invited the people we
were in touch with. In the first workshop we had six
 28
persons, only one was a sighted person and she was
the wife of one of the participants. Two of them knew
each other well before and one of them was an ac-
quaintance that by chance met the others in the work-
shop. Three were women that were around 70 years
old and three were around 40 years old.
In the case of the second workshop we invited the
people through Arla Institute, a vocational training
and development centre, where we went to give an
introduction about our project: Äänijälki. Seven par-
ticipants were visually impaired and the rest were as-
sistants or teachers. All of them participated in the
workshop in equal terms. In this group there were
people of different ages, from 16 to 50 years old,
and from different backgrounds (for example: craft
or masseurs students). In this workshop the total
amount of people present in the workshop was 17: 12
persons came from Arla Institute, two persons were
Ateneum Museum staff, one person was in charge
of documenting and two researchers conducted the
workshop.
The program of the two workshops varied for some
parts. In the second one we added a tour in the mu-
seum and the whole workshop lasted one hour more
than the first one.
Clay pieces
The aim of the first task of the workshops was to
shed light on the factors that for the visually impaired
make up a good experience in the museum. In the
first workshop the first hands-on task was to describe
the features of an ideal future guide for museums. It
could be a person, a dog or a device. In the second,
the task was to describe features of a good exhibition.
In both workshops clay was used as material for vi-
sualizing thoughts. We chose clay because it utilizes
visual medium, essential in design, for conveying
ideas and also because neither of us knows Braille.
We also thought that the familiarity with the material
and the connection of it to childhood memories could
facilitate the task. Participants were asked to make a
piece for each aspect they wanted to present.
The pieces were placed in the middle of the table
one by one, in the order of being finished. Partici-
pants modeled the clay and spoke about their ideas.
After the participant explained the clay piece we
asked some questions related to the issues that rose
from the explanation. In many cases the question was
how the person connects the piece with the topic of
future exhibitions.
After this activity, we asked the participants to start
dividing the pieces into groups. The task was, first,
to classify the objects according to some commonal-
ity and then to give each group a title. We partici-
pated in the classification task as facilitators. Collab-
oratively with the participants we went through the
pieces on the table one by one repeating the title and
asking suggestions for grouping them. Together with
the participants we formulated titles for each group.
At the end of the task we confirmed that everyone
agreed with the titles given. This activity was based
on the technique of making an affinity diagram (Bey-
er 1998). Most often such a diagram is put together
on a wall using e.g. Post-It Notes. The aim of build-
ing the diagram is to organize individual notes into a
hierarchical structure that reveals the common issues
and themes in the subject that is being studied (Beyer
1998).
The clay pieces are unique small sculptures, made
for the purpose of communicating participants’ ideas
in the context of the workshop. They were a tool for
stimulating discussion and an aid for remembering
what was discussed. The tangibility of the pieces kept
the meaning attached to them in a concrete shape.
Analysis of the clay pieces
Cards
“Pictorial montages show their seams, whereas the
images produced by words fuse into unified wholes”
(Arnheim 1969, 253). Based on this statement, we
decided that our interpretation would focus on both
the images and the oral descriptions that accompa-
nied them in the situation. To isolate these two sides
of the same coin from each other would have led to
misinterpretations.
Figure 1. A card shows the title, a clay
piece and the explanation.
In the process of analyzing the clay elements that
the participants had made we created cards. Each
card had a picture of the particular clay piece (digi-
tally color-corrected), a title given by the participant
who made the piece and a fragment of the oral infor-
mation chosen and translated by the researchers. In
this process of manipulating the cards some of the
interpretations took shape. These cards were bound-
ary objects for the analysis.
This process of converting the clay pieces into
cards was time consuming but it facilitated meaning-
ful discussion in our group and it helped to familiar-
ize with the material. First there is the fact that the
pieces lost their tangibility aspect the moment we
 29
started working with pictures and not any more with
three-dimensional objects. Second the fact of choos-
ing a small piece of text that describes the piece is
arguable. Since some times it was not in this piece
of description where meaningful hints appeared but
in the discussion that follows. Also, in some cases
other participants were adding features or comments
to the piece and we chose to leave attached in the
card only the comments made by the author of the
piece. We know that all these decisions influenced
this analysis.
We gave pseudonyms for the workshop partici-
pants. Participants described themselves, their inten-
tions and their personalities through these pieces. For
example, Hanna associated the small cat with love
(Figure 2). For her it was important that the work of
guiding was done with love, with an interest in the
job and activity that was performed. The piece also
showed the ability of the person to make a small,
precise cat out of clay. Moreover, seeing the cat as
a representation of love was a personal construction,
not a straightforward connection.
Figure 2. ”Cat”.
The picture above depicts one possible connection
between clay pieces and the oral speech that accompa-
nied them. There are a variety of relations that appear
in these cards. A cube, for example, has a perceptual
and cultural liaison with the semantic meaning of the
cube. Everybody understands the cube as a simple
form. Anniina put a cube on the stage, adding that for
her the cube means clarity. Anniina chose one char-
acteristic of the cube and associated it with the mes-
sage she wanted to give. On the other hand, the card
with the “Cat” shows a personal connection between
the metaphor chosen and the explanation.
Diagrams
With the purpose of making an interpretation of the
pieces, we did two diagrams that describe the results
for each workshop. First of all, after the workshop,
we made an affinity diagram using the cards with the
aim of answering the question of what is a good guide
like. Based on our diagram (Figure 3) we found some
characteristics that visually impaired people found
important: presentation skills, emotional or human
features and awareness of the context in which the
guide is immersed.
Figure 3. Diagram 1.
The presentation skills are related to the fact that a
guide “has to be clear”, manage the complexity and
the shortages that an exhibition might have, and be
able to explain one piece in connection with others.
The guide has certain emotional characteristics as
“love for the thing she is explaining” [2], interested-
ness, humor, personality, presence in the moment and
subconsciously connection with the theme. Another
point was the notion that the guide has to be able to
make connections between knowledge and experi-
ence.
The issues undertook in the workshop concerning
the situation of being in a museum guided tour were
the importance of the dialogue between the guide and
the person, the flexibility of the guide in talking about
different topics related to the exhibition, “even about
technical description that someone could be inter-
ested in”. This flexibility is connected to the idea that
the guide should not have a fixed speech but could
change it according to the audience. Another point
concerning the situation was that the conformation of
the group of listeners shapes the visit, and therefore
naïve questioning is either exhibited or inhibited.
There were other features that came out in the dis-
cussion, features specifically related to the exhibition.
These were represented in some of the clay shapes
as well. A guide could also address these problems
although they were not direct characteristics of the
guide herself. For the participants the artist’s pres-
ence in the exhibition and the connection between the
artist and the piece were relevant issues. Moreover,
the participants highlighted the importance of having
some touchable elements that could be explored in an
exhibition. Finally, they added that sometimes they
have an unconscious assumption that they are not
able to move, so they avoid going and even trying.
For representing this idea, Kalle used the metaphor
of the threshold.
In the case of the second workshop the first re-
grouping of cards produced a thematic diagram.
In this diagram we identified four groups. We also
found pieces out of the context of the workshop, or
not addressing the question asked.
 30

A) Accessibility issues were divided into two sub-

groups: the kinesthetic accessibility (relating to mov-
ing around, including the body actions in the exhibi-
tion) and the sensory accessibility. In the sub-group
that related to kinesthetic accessibility they proposed
as features of a good exhibition: absence of obstacles,
possibility of movement even with wheelchair, moti-
vation for body movements as hanging, swinging and
touching and clarity of the exhibition’s route. In the
sub-group of sensory accessibility touch and smell
were highlighted as important factors in the enjoy-
ment of an exhibition.
B) Atmosphere and emotions. They pointed out
Figure 5. “Funny and with personality”
that the whole atmosphere in the exhibition influenc-
es emotions. They suggest that the ideal atmosphere
In contrast, in others there was a direct connection
for a museum is cozy. Other topics such as shame,
as in the “Right hand”. (Figure 6)
security and having enough energy for visiting the
whole museum arose in the discussion.
C) Concrete ideas such as having an exhibition that
includes moments of relaxation and moments of ex-
treme experiences.
D) Positive experiences in other museums such as
the Natural Science Museums and the Provincial mu-
seums.

Secondly we did another regrouping of the cards

(Figure 7). This time we had the relationship between
the clay pieces and the oral descriptions in mind. We
separated the cards between sensory and arbitrary
features. Ware defines these concepts in the follow-
ing way: “The word sensory represents symbols and
aspects of visualizations that derive their expressive
power from their ability to use the perceptual process-
ing power of the brain without learning. (…) On the
other hand, arbitrary defines aspects of representa-
tion that must be learned, because the representations
have no perceptual basis.” (Ware 2004, 10). One ex-
ample of a sensory piece is “Cat” and an example of
an arbitrary piece is “Talking heads”. (Figure 4)
Figure 6. “Right Hand”
Moreover there were some cases where there was
no literal relation between the metaphor chosen
and the description. This is the case of the “Horn of
Wealth”, a piece that has certainly cultural connota-
tions.
There are other cases in which pieces and meanings
attached to them were not so straightforward. Some
of them are used as metaphors, as in the case of the
“Brush and palette”. Jouko said that the piece repre-
sents “the presence of the artist” in the exhibition.

In the case of the second workshop most of the clay

pieces were sensory material and within this group
there is a majority of metaphors used as a way to
present their ideas.

Discussion

Figure 4. “Talking Heads”
In the case of the cube, the relation between the
piece and the oral description works smoothly. More-
over, there are other meanings implied, but not ex-
plicitly shown like simplicity and easiness.
Within these two groups we found that some of the
pieces have a personal and innovative way of asso-
ciating the oral description with the pieces. See the
case of “Funny and with personality”. (Figure 5)
Participants found that they could make the pieces
easily and could express their ideas through them.
They told us that in some cases the pieces appeared
first and then they tried to connect it with the idea
they had.
Some of the participants opened themselves up, pre-
senting emotions. We would seldom have imagined
such issues as loneliness, shame, position in the soci-
ety, religion and spiritual issues to come up in groups
of people that have not necessarily met before.
 31
Material encourages people to talk, and works as
an inspiration for thought. We have still some open
questions that we would like to explore in the future:
How thought and physical activity interact in these
cases? How emotions become visible through mold-
ing, or working with materials?
Clay as medium was a good choice because it
gave enough flexibility and made it possible to pass
pieces around. In this way all the group members
could touch them, enabling sharing and understand-
ing. Passing around the pieces was only applied in
the second workshop. This generated a lot of small
side conversations within the group, since the person
passing the piece was explaining the piece to the per-
son receiving it.
The atmosphere was quite different since in the
first workshop the participants were more engaged
into a common discussion. In the second one there
were constant side conversations. This might be due
to the amount of the participants and the workshop’s
program and atmosphere.
Participants were concerned to leave a piece, and
make a valuable contribution but were not commit-
ted to listen to the rest of the group. This caused that
some objects were overlapping in their meaning.
This means that eventually there were two different
objects standing for the same meaning. Even some
objects were repeated, such as the boats or the men.
That resulted in two objects representing the same
but standing for different things.
Something that was particular for the second work-
shop was that there were some clay pieces and com-
ments that were not at all connected to the question.
We constantly asked the participants how do they
connect their piece to the museum exhibition, and in
some cases we did not get a clear answer.
In the case of the second workshop we also felt that
there was lot of interesting insights that could not be
undertaken in depth because of lack of time. We per-
Figure 7. Diagram 2.
ceived the second workshop group as too big and
heterogeneous. The participants had different age,
background, visual impairment degree and other dis-
abilities. How did their identity define their participa-
tion? We think that we need a long-term engagement
with this group in order to understand their needs not
only as visually impaired persons but as people with
their own background and identity. These two work-
shops were not enough but they gave us some hints
of the kind of dialogue that we wanted to have with
this particular community. In the future the axis of
this dialogue will challenge the perception of emo-
tion and space for the visually impaired.
We realize that the way we collect material af-
fects the results we obtain. Thus, it is necessary to
reflect on the approach used for collecting material.
The tasks presented to the participants were well de-
fined but open-ended. In this way people could ex-
press themselves ingeniously. The categorization of
the clay pieces forms the basis of this analysis. The
approach was chosen for both the collection of re-
search material and for analyzing it. These diagrams
served to clarify our interpretations and enabled us
to present them in certain order. On this topic Bertin
has the opinion that graphics make visible the notions
of discussion, reasoning and understanding. (Bertin
2000/2001, 11).
The material gathered is inspirational material that
will be used in the next phase of Äänijälki, when we
plan to implement it in Ateneum. These are also out-
comes gathered for the later design of suitable and
accessible interventions in other museum spaces.
Notes
[1] Sound traces.
[2] The English quotations referring to partici-
pants’ speech of this paper are all our translations
from Finnish.
 32

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Lily Diaz-Kommonen that is always help-

ing and encouraging us in our work. We want to espe-
cially thank all the participants of the workshop and
the staff of Ateneum. Thanks to Arla Institute. Thanks
to M. Luhtala and T. Laine who were in charge of the
video documentation during the workshops.

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