Considering reach in tangible and table top design

Abstract

Reach heavily impacts all aspects of designing for tangible and tabletop user interfaces. It dictates the input space available to each user and heavily shapes how that space is used. Despite its impact to date tangible, table top, and user interface design have all largely overlooked reach as a design constraint. As a result, advancing the state of the art for tangible and table top designs requires rethinking existing designs to consider the repercussions of reach, and starting to formally consider reach as part of our designs process. Designing in consideration of reach allows for more usable tables, applications supporting diverse environments, and user interfaces which are optimally scaled to their current set of users.