Tangible actions

We present Tangible Actions, an ad-hoc, just-in-time, visual programming by example language designed for large multitouch interfaces. With the design of Tangible Actions, we contribute a continually-created system of programming tokens that occupy the same space as the objects they act on. Tangible Actions are created by the gestural actions of the user, and they allow the user to reuse and modify their own gestures with a lower interaction cost than the original gesture. We implemented Tangible Actions in three different tabletop applications, and ran an informal evaluation. While we found that study participants generally liked and understood Tangible Actions, having the objects and the actions co-located can lead to visual and interaction clutter.