Abstract

International audience; Current environment used by air traffic controllers mixes digital visualizations (radar screen), and tangible systems with paper strip. Despite the fact that paper strip are robust, flexible and complementary to the radar screen, authorities decided to abandon it in the profit of digital strip. The main issue of paper strip is that the system does not have access to the information written on it. In this paper, we studied an alternative solution with hybrids Anoto pens with contiuous streaming. We first retrieved important tasks performed by air traffic controller, second, we investigated to find out efficient interaction paradigm for their activity. Finally, we developed and assessed an operational prototype with new functionalities. This suggests that it is possible to retain advantages of existing paper strip while informing informatics systems and improving interaction.

Abstract

Best Paper Honorable Mention award; International audience; We reflect upon the design of a paper-based tangible interactive space to support air traffic control. We have observed, studied, prototyped and discussed with controllers a new mixed interaction system based on Anoto, video projection, and tracking. Starting from the understanding of the benefits of tangible paper strips, our goal is to study how mixed physical and virtual augmented data can support the controllers' mental work. The context of the activity led us to depart from models that are proposed in tangible interfaces research where coherence is based on how physical objects are representative of virtual objects. We propose a new account of coherence in a mixed interaction system that integrates externalization mechanisms. We found that physical objects play two roles: they act both as representation of mental objects and as tangible artifacts for interacting with augmented features. We observed that virtual objects represent physical ones, and not the reverse, and, being virtual representations of physical objects, should seamlessly converge with the cognitive role of the physical object. Finally, we show how coherence is achieved by providing a seamless interactive space.