Edinburgh Napier University

  Tangible interaction promises interfaces with ready affordances, which embrace physicality and which naturally support collaboration. However, the complexity of the hardware required to produce tangible systems has typically constrained their operation to highly specialized application areas and particular physical environments. This paper argues that this has limited the scope of research into such systems and addresses this issue by presenting Mementos, a tangible interface for tourists and travelers and intended to support all stages of a trip: preparation, experience, and remembering and reflecting. In this way, it explores how tangible interaction can support a complex real world task spread across time and multiple contexts. The paper describes the design, implementation and early evaluation of Mementos. It concludes that such work takes an important step towards popularizing tangible interaction.