Physical controls such as knobs, sliders, and buttons are experiencing a revival as many computing systems progress from personal computing architectures towards ubiquitous computing architectures. We demonstrate a process for measuring and comparing visceral emotional responses of a physical control to performance results of a target acquisition task. In our user study, participants experienced mechanical and rendered friction, inertia, and detent dynamics as they turned a haptic knob towards graphical targets of two different widths and amplitudes. Together, this process and user study provide novel affect- and performance-based design guidance to developers of physical controls for emerging ubiquitous computing environments. Our work bridges extensive human factors work in mechanical systems that peaked in the 1960's, to contemporary trends, with a goal of integrating mechatronic controls into emerging ubiquitous computing systems.

In recent years, we have seen a great deal of expansion in our knowledge of forest ecosystems and the underlying management dimensions that support decision-making in this context. Forestry, much like other natural resource management disciplines, is faced with the challenge of integrating information from many different perspectives often with limited understanding of the basic principles of the multitude of specialized fields from which they are generated. This problem is only exacerbated when reviewing management options with diverse stakeholders such as statutory decision makers and the general public. This paper suggests that 3D visualizations can aid in mitigating these difficulties of communication and understanding forest complexity. Methods of visualizing forestry data hold promise in clarifying complex spatial and temporal relationships, for experts and lay people alike. This paper reviews issues of complexity raised by today's demand for sustainable forest management, and the potential of 3D visualization to address these issues, drawing on past and current research on visualization effectiveness and validity. Ultimately, the goal of this work is to develop effective visualization methodologies to expand our ability to explore, critique, and understand forestry data. Our hope is that this supports knowledge discovery and diffusion to effected communities in the face of underlying data complexity and often, a limited familiarity with the concepts and principles of forest management.