ATTENTION = lot of things to Edit in this article

Frustration
Starting point of my motivation for the Master thesis project:
Frustration regarding (what I call) the coldness of digital (social interaction).

• Numeric interfaces and precisely our everyday life interaction tools with the digital world are made for functionality and productivity.
• They are not sensitive to the intention and intensity of our actions, which put a distance with the user. Exactly what I call “coldness of the digital world”.
What I call our actions intensity is the physical way we do an action (softly, with aggressivity, …).
What I call our actions intention is the way we think when we do something, it’s how we feel (stress, embarrassment, excitation, joy…).
• Another reason of the so called “coldness” of computing interaction is the lack of intensive feed-back of the machine.
What I call intensive feed-back would be a tangible feedback (force feedback).
But it’s not the part on which I wish to focus in my researches.

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****In the following paragraph the word “tangible” is used temporarily, until I find a better one meaning digital media as to be sensible, closer to the richness of live and non-verbal communication.
• Why is that so important to make digital interaction tangible?

Because there is an unavoidable distance between human user and traditional digital devices (as screens, mobile phones, keyboards) as «everything that happens only on the screen stays in the screen. It disappears as soon as you get far from it or you shut the power down. Getting surrounded by screens everywhere is a solution, taking digital interaction (input and output) out of the screen is an other.
• From my point of view, the part of digital interaction that miss the most tangibility is communication.
Emotion can be generated by digital devices as much as movies do but not the contrary: emotion input to generate digital device interaction.
There is something missing with the computer-based communication. The message is a bit too compressed by the medium. The message lacks “corps, saveur…” depth, it lacks non-verbal meaning.

• We can feel assaulted by the smell of someone who put too much perfume. Or by someone who talks to loud. Can we in the digital world? What are the ways to communicate (input) that kind of emotional state with nowadays tools of communication?

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Alternative communication
Giving an eye to actual trends in future of communication we clearly see some things emerging. From Apple “face time” to the internet connexion improvement, omnipresence of urban connected areas (Wifi, 3G). It is worth asking ourselves the question: How could our future digital communication interfaces look like? And are we going toward a possible omnipresence of screens in communication devices?

I don’t believe in an “over screening future”, I dream of senses involving interfaces, digital communication augmented by emotions, non-verbal “meaning”**** and alternative ways of communication.

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Extract keywords
Computer-based communication
– Why? (usage) Fun, work, useful, stay connected
– Empowerments / Diminishment / catch up with (mimic) reality
– Connected (To feel…)
– computer-assisted communication (CAO Communication assistée par ordinateur).
– coldness of digital
– distance human/traditional digital device
– message compressed
– message lack depth
Alternative communication
– Medium (+list NN workshop +list past year)
– Share one’s feelings
– Social interaction (+sketches : one-to-one, one-to-many)
– Alternative (make a list)
– non-verbal communication
Embedded and embodied source of interaction
– Non-voluntary input
– sensors
– what happens outside / is revealed by what happens inside
– digital interaction out of the screen
– tangible input
– emotional input, feel
– intensity of action – then intensive feed-back?
– sensitive to intention
– affective design
– To not communicate a feeling: explode (overflow) / to communicate a feeling overflow

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Reformulate brief
Nowadays, everyday interpersonal communication (with each other) seams to be mainly computer assisted. In everyday life of digital natives people digital technologies seems to be an extension of the senses or at least some part of the body. Computer-based communication can be perceived as empowerment thanks to its ubiquitous properties and super-connectivity (to feel connected), a diminishment because of the language limits that impose sometimes these channels of communication or CAO (“com. assistée par ordinateur” – computer assisted communication) can seams to try to catch up with real (live) channel of communication like the videoconference for instance.
Depending on what is the usage (fun, work…) communication seams to often be a matter of sharing one’s feeling and is always about social interaction.
Alternative communication bring up some fresh point of view on that theme, without making a precise list of these medium of communication, brail, smoke signs, facial expression, non-verbal communication as much as the computer brings different channel of communication and therefore different limits (rules) in the language used. …?…Therefore…?…
Embedded (or embodied) phenomenons are influenced and therefore reveal what happens outside of the body. Main part of embedded reactions needs specific sensors to be triggered but it can still be an interesting indicator of a state of mind, a feeling to share, maybe exploitable in social interaction. In the end, embedded interaction is also interesting because it is a channel of communication that has a non-voluntary input.