This research proposes a joint 3D cube-tabletop design for parametric design and explores the effects of tangible user interfaces (TUIs) on parametric design supporting an algorithmic process. This research aims to empirically examine how designers perform parametric design using tangible user interfaces (TUIs), in terms of learnability and exploration. This research contributes to the understanding of how tangible user interfaces (TUIs) impact spatial composition.

The tabletop system integrates the 3D cubes and tabletop into a joint cube-tabletop design. The 3D cubes and tabletop designs each have affordances, and these affordances can be described in terms of user actions and system actions. The affordances of the 3D cubes pertain to user actions on cubes and the resulting cube system actions, and tabletop affordances pertain to user actions on the tabletop display and the resulting tabletop system actions.

3D cubes and a touch screen are used as the tangible input devices for the tangible user interface (TUI). The 3D cubes are manipulated from an existing digital tangible device called Sifteo Cubes. The 3D cubes are used to manipulate the algorithmic composition of components through the physical cubes’ composition and the touch screen is used to manipulate variables such as width, height, angle, and number.

An existing tabletop system called Microsoft Tabletop Surface is used for tangible user interface (TUI), and its tabletop system consists of a large horizontal display with multi-touch input. The 3D cubes have their display, and at the same time, they can be used as the major input device for composition. The cubes can be used anywhere regardless of the location of the tabletop display, and the physical composition of cubes displays the algorithmic process on the cubes’ own display.

The tabletop uses an existing application, NodeBox (http://beta.nodebox.net/), for tangible parametric design. NodeBox is a simplified node-based software application that can create 2D visuals using Python programming code.

In this research, I studied the effects of tangible user interfaces (TUIs) on parametric design supporting an algorithmic process in terms of learnability and design exploration. To highlight the expected effects of tangible user interfaces (TUIs) in the learning environment, I compared designers using a tangible user interface (TUI) on a tabletop system with cubes to designers using a graphical user interface (GUI) on a desktop computer with a mouse and keyboard. The results clearly show that the use of tangible user interfaces (TUIs) influences the ability of designers to learn parametric design. Specifically, the designers using tangible user interfaces (TUIs) engaged in more design exploration and discovered unexpected features.