Transfaces

Participants: Catherine Letondal, Guillaume Giroud et Sylvain Pauchet
Date: 2022

We propose the concept of « transface » to unify surface-bound and surface-less interfaces. The transface concept considers an « inter-face » not as an object but as a relation, as a medium, through which interaction occurs. A transface has five dimensions that we discuss in the paper:  1) alterity because, as a medium, the transface establishes a relation with something other than itself and  2) the operations that it enables. Being a relation, a transface is perceived only by its effects: 3) as a traversable, to some degree, with 4) flows that traverse it, 5) providing a traversal experience. We explored the concept with ten examples from the literature and interviews with five designers and we propose ten design cards on transface concerns, to help HCI designers explore relevant questions when designing surface-bound and surface-less interfaces.  The designers confirmed its usefulness for discussions at a better level of abstraction than device capabilities.

Related Publication

Giroud, G, Letondal, C, and Pauchet, S. 2022. Autour de l’idée de transface. In Proceedings of Colloque International “Vivre par(mi) les écrans: passé et avenir“, Université Jean Moulin III, IRPhil, 27-29 avril 2022, in press. (Around the idea of transface, english translation).
http://recherche.enac.fr/~letondal/paper/Autour_de_l_idee_de_transface_Colloque_Vivre_parmi_les_ecrans.pdf
http://recherche.enac.fr/~letondal/papers/Around_the_idea_of_transface.pdf

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