Formloupe is an augmented reality (AR) experience, situated in furniture retail stores, allowing users to customise and design furniture and rooms. It is the culmination of a master's thesis research project by Ajla Ćano and Daniel Roeven.

AR is a relatively new medium, and new interaction patterns are being still being discovered and created. Questions and topics central to this research project are:

1. What can we learn from the wealth of existing research on interaction styles when creating new interaction patterns and models that suit AR?
2. What interaction opportunities can this new medium offer that touchscreen interaction can't?
3. How can we use this new medium to advance existing interaction styles and overcome their limitations?

By …

I have a soft spot for new input peripherals—I think the area of developing new input devices for our computing lives is underexplored¹. They don't always become smashing successes (Apple's Touch Bar never was quite so well received), but I think it's worth exploring to see whether new types of input devices can add meaningful interactions to computers².

The Microsoft Surface Dial looks fantastic. It's a puck that can be twisted and pressed, either on-screen or on a table. This makes it useful in both touchscreen-tablet modes (such as the Surface Studio) or in regular mouse-and-keyboard desktop modes.

The dial allows you to navigate radial menus (another criminally underused UI element, except for, it seems, in 3D software?). Menus can …

Nintendo Labo is a clever way to augment videogaming with a physical counterpart. With foldable pieces of cardboard, one constructs various toys that the Nintendo Switch can slot into. The different sensors and actuators on the Switch then interact with the cardboard models, creating fishing rods, pianos, motorcycles, robots, and more.

It looks incredibly fun to play with, both as a kid, fully immersed in the make-believe world, and as a parent, playing and setting it up together with your kid. Perhaps even using the in-game explanation of how it works. But beside the joyful appeal, it's very interesting from an interaction design perspective. It does away with the uniform controls of buttons and joysticks for every game. Instead, both …