Seth Hunter, Jeevan Kalanithi, David Merrill

Abstract

We present the design of Make a Riddle and TeleStory, educational applications developed on the Siftables platform for children aged 4-7 years. Siftables*are*hybrid* tangible1graphical* user* interface* devices* with* motion* and* neighbor* sensing,* graphical* display,* and* wireless* communication.*Siftables provide a unique opportunity to give children responsive feedback about the movement and arrangement of a distributed set of objects. We contrast the use case that includes an external display to their use as a standalone application platform. We outline design strategies for communicating information about the affordances of the Siftables and methods of providing dynamic feedback to encourage manipulation and to increase engagement during application use for hybrid tangible-graphical user interfaces.