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Rich Digital Collaborations in a Small Rural Community

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Abstract

In this chapter we describe experience in the design and installation of a low-cost multi-touch table in a rural island community. We discuss the creation of the table including: pragmatic challenges of installation, and then re-installation as the physical fabric of the multi-purpose building (café, cinema, meeting area and cattle market) altered; technical challenges of using off-the-shelf components to create state-of-the art multi-touch interactions and tactile BYOD (bring your own device) end-user programming; design challenges of creating high-production value bespoke mountings and furniture using digital fabrication in an environment that could include sewing needles, ketchup laden sandwiches and cow manure. The resulting installation has been used in semi-in-the-wild studies of bespoke applications, leading to understandings of the way small communities could use advanced interactions. More broadly this sits within a context of related studies of information technology in rural developments and a desire to understand how communities can become users of the rich streams of open data now available, and, perhaps more important, offer ways in which small communities can become empowered through the creation and control of their own data.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    W. Heath Robinson (1872–1944) drew images of complex machines with a superfluity of levers, cogs, wheels, and pulleys, to perform mundane and often not very useful purposes. These are called Rube Goldberg devices in the United States.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Talis and University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Alan Dix

  2. Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK

    Alessio Malizia & Tommaso Turchi

  3. Cardiff Metropolitan University, Cardiff, UK

    Steve Gill, Gareth Loudon & Richard Morris

  4. University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Alan Chamberlain

  5. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Andrea Bellucci

Authors
  1. Alan Dix
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  2. Alessio Malizia
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  3. Tommaso Turchi
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  4. Steve Gill
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  5. Gareth Loudon
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  6. Richard Morris
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  7. Alan Chamberlain
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  8. Andrea Bellucci
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alan Dix .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Middlesex University , London, United Kingdom

    Craig Anslow

  2. Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute, University of Madeira , Funchal, Reg. Aut. da Madeira, Portugal

    Pedro Campos

  3. Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon , Lisbon, Portugal

    Joaquim Jorge

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Dix, A. et al. (2016). Rich Digital Collaborations in a Small Rural Community. In: Anslow, C., Campos, P., Jorge, J. (eds) Collaboration Meets Interactive Spaces. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45853-3_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45853-3_20

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-45852-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-45853-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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