Tangible User Interface

A tangible user interface (TUI) is a user interface in which a person interacts with digital information through the physical environment. The initial name was Graspable User Interface, which no longer is used.One of the pioneers in tangible user interfaces is Hiroshi Ishii, a professor in the MIT Media Laboratory who heads the Tangible Media Group. His particular vision for tangible UIs, called Tangible Bits, is to give physical form to digital information, making bits directly manipulable and perceptible. Tangible bits pursues seamless coupling between these two very different worlds of bits and atoms.
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<interface> An attempt to give physical form to digital information, making bits directly manipulable and perceptible by people. Tangible Interfaces will make bits accessible through augmented physical surfaces (e.g. walls, desktops, ceilings, windows), graspable objects (e.g. building blocks, models, instruments) and ambient media (e.g. light, sound, airflow, water-flow, kinetic sculpture) within physical environments.
MIT Tangible Media Group.
(2003-10-17)