In the everyday world much of what we do as social beings is dictated by how we perceive and
manage our interpersonal space. This is called proxemics. At its simplest people naturally
correlate physical distance to social distance. We believe that people's expectations of
proxemics can be exploited in interaction design to mediate their interactions with devices
(phones tablets computers appliances large displays) contained within a small ubiquitous
computing ecology. Just as people expect increasing engagement and intimacy as they approach
others so should they naturally expect increasing connectivity and interaction possibilities
as they bring themselves and their devices in close proximity to one another. This is called
Proxemic Interactions. This book concerns the design of proxemic interactions within such
future proxemic-aware ecologies. It imagines a world of devices that have fine-grained
knowledge of nearby people and other devices-how they move into range their precise distance
their identity and even their orientation-and how such knowledge can be exploited to design
interaction techniques. The first part of this book concerns theory. After introducing
proxemics we operationalize proxemics for ubicomp interaction via the Proxemic Interactions
framework that designers can use to mediate people's interactions with digital devices. The
framework in part identifies five key dimensions of proxemic measures (distance orientation
movement identity and location) to consider when designing proxemic-aware ubicomp systems.
The second part of this book applies this theory to practice via three case studies of
proxemic-aware systems that react continuously to people's and devices' proxemic relationships.
The case studies explore the application of proxemics in small-space ubicomp ecologies by
considering first person-to-device then device-to-device and finally person-to-person and
device-to-device proxemic relationships. We also offer a critical perspective on proxemic
interactions in the form of dark patterns where knowledge of proxemics may (and likely will)
be easily exploited to the detriment of the user. Table of Contents: Acknowledgments Videos
Figure Credits Introduction Part I Ubicomp in Brief Proxemic Interactions Theory
Operationalizing Proxemics for Ubicomp Interaction Exploiting Proxemics to Address Challenges
in Ubicomp Ecologies Part II: Exploiting Proxemics in Ubicomp Ecologies Person
Person-to-Device Proxemic Interactions Device-to-Device Proxemic Interactions Considering
Person-to-Person and Device-to-Device Proxemics Dark Patterns Conclusion References
Author Biographies
