The d-touch drum machine (and soon the d-touch sequencer) is part of a research experiment in Human-Computer Interaction. We are trying to understand more about people interacting with tangible user interfaces. The d-touch drum machine is in fact an example of tangible user interface: an interface controlled by arranging physical tokens in the real world (rather than, for example, virtual icons). We hope that by observing real-world usage of this kind of interfaces we will be able to inform the design of future systems that may better serve users.
To enable our research, the d-touch drum machine usage is logged on our server. We record the position of the blocks used in the interface, in terms of x- and y-coordinates, and no other information. This data will be used for academic research purposes only, and if published it will appear only in anonymous format.
Please tell us what you think! Post your impressions about using the d-touch drum machine on our forum and share videos and photos as indicated on the community page.
We believe to be the first ones attempting to run this kind of experiment.