The role of cultural forms in tangible interaction design

I suggest an approach to tangible interaction design that builds on social and cultural foundations. Specifically, I propose that designers can evoke cultural forms as a means to tap into users' existing cognitive, physical, and emotional resources. The emphasis is less on improving the usability of an interface and more on improving the overall experience around an interactive artifact by cueing productive patterns of social activity. My use of the term cultural form is derived from the work of Geoffrey Saxe and his form-function shift framework. This framework describes a process through which individuals appropriate cultural forms and restructure them to serve new functions in light of shifting goals and expectations. I describe Saxe's framework and then illustrate the use of cultural forms in design with three examples.