Section: Research Program

Introduction

Interaction is by nature a dynamic phenomenon that takes place between interactive systems and their users. Redesigning interactive systems to better account for interaction requires fine understanding of these dynamics from the user side so as to better handle them from the system side. In fact, layers of actual interactive systems abstract hardware and system resources from a system and programing perspective. Following our Interaction Machine concept, we are reconsidering these architectures from the user perspective, through different levels of dynamics of interaction (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Levels of dynamics of interaction.

Considering phenomena that occur at each of these levels as well as their relationships will help us to acquire the necessary knowledge (Empowering Tools) and technological bricks (Interaction Machine) to reconcile the way interactive systems are designed and engineered with human abilities. Although our strategy is to investigate issues and address challenges for all of the three levels, our immediate priority is to focus on micro-dynamics since it concerns very fundamental knowledge about interaction and relates to very low-level parts of interactive systems, which is likely to influence our future research and developments at the other levels.