Sunday, 22 June 2025, 08:30 - 12:30 CEST (Central European Summer Time - Sweden)
Radu-Daniel Vatavu (short bio)
Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Romania
Modality
on-line
Target Audience
- Researchers
- Students
- Practitioners
Abstract
Decades ago, the natural interaction paradigm revolutionized how we interact with computers and computerized environments. Today, natural interaction has become the dominant paradigm, enabling users to engage with digital devices, personal assistants, video games, and smart environments through gestures, voice, or eye gaze. However, emerging application areas, such as extended reality and devices designed to augment the human body, have introduced novel forms of interaction that no longer align neatly with the natural design paradigm, prompting a reconsideration of what “natural” truly means. Furthermore, advances in artificial intelligence and its integration into physical computing have led to new levels of perceived anthropomorphization, embodiment, and emotional engagement and, therefore, demand a reevaluation of our relationship with AI-driven digital objects and environments. This course addresses the challenges of natural interaction design by exploring interactive systems spanning from wearables that challenge user agency to smart environments featuring invisible layers of digital content anchored in mid-air, and devices that extend the human body with virtual limbs to create physical-virtual hybrids.
Benefits for attendees
Attendees will receive an overview of natural interaction design, including its benefits and challenges in designing interactions with computer systems. Building on this foundation, they will be introduced to non-natural interaction – a recent paradigm that complements and provides an alternative to the established approach. Through practical examples, attendees will explore the non-natural interaction paradigm across a wide range of AI-embedded interactive technologies, including wearable devices that influence user agency, smart environments, on-body computing, and cross-device input. The course will also examine implications for smart environments, drawing on conceptual similarities between extended reality and ambient intelligence.
Course Content
Aims and objectives: The goal of the course is to inspire creative exploration of interaction designs that, in the age of AI-driven devices and environments, need to advance beyond mainstream paradigms. The course also highlights the value of innovative interaction design for specific application areas of AI-driven ambient intelligence and extended reality environments.
Tentative table of contents:
- Introduction: setting the context and motivations for exploring other interaction design paradigms in the age of AI-driven devices and environments.
- An overview of the natural interaction design paradigm: exposition of design principles and quality characteristics of natural interaction, nuances of the term “natural” from the perspective of interaction design with computer systems, examples of applied natural interaction design with benefits and challenges, criticisms of natural interaction.
- An overview of interaction design for smart and extended reality environments: exposition of design principles and quality characteristics of ambient intelligence environments, perspectives from the field, exploration of conceptual similarities between ambient intelligence and extended reality, interaction design examples.
- Non-natural interaction: introduction to non-natural interaction as a complementary design paradigm to natural interaction, perspectives on non-natural design, design principles for non-natural interaction in new AI-driven computerized environments.
- Case studies in non-natural interaction applied to AI-driven devices and environments: several case studies will be discussed in detail to showcase the benefits of natural and non-natural interaction design involving wearable devices, smart environments, and extended reality.
- Hands-on session: attendees will be invited to apply natural and non-natural design principles to their own projects that might benefit from these paradigms. The results will be shared with the entire group of attendees.
- Wrap-up: conclusions will be drawn on the benefits of thinking beyond mainstream interaction design paradigms.
Bio Sketch of Course instructor
Radu-Daniel Vatavu is a Professor of Computer Science at the Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, where he directs the Machine Intelligence and Information Visualization Research Laboratory (MintViz). His research spans topics from Human-Computer Interaction, Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments, Augmented/Mixed/Extended Reality, and Accessible Computing. In this space, Prof. Vatavu has focused on enabling efficient interactions with computer systems and computerized environments spanning from large displays to personal mobile and wearable devices to hybrid environments, which exploit natural and non-natural interaction modalities. He is also interested in making computing more accessible to users of various abilities, and his work has often addressed interaction design for users with visual or motor impairments. Prof. Vatavu’s research contributions have been recognized with numerous paper awards at CHI, ICMI, and IMX. More information is available on his web page and the MintViz lab page.