Magnetic files:exploring tag based file systems using embodied files

The widespread use of the desktop metaphor during the early adoption of computers has promoted the utilization of files and folders. However many people have use cases that are not well suited to the strict nature of these systems. As a result, alternative file system paradigms are being explored by the research community, and by leading software vendors. Tangible interactions for exploring these alternative file systems have largely been unexplored, despite the many benefits that tangible interfaces could bring to such systems. Those that do explore this area are limited in information bandwidth by the number of feedback channels used to represent this information. Therefore, in this paper we introduce two associated works in progress: one that explores the design of a tag based file system affording tangible interaction; and a second that initiates the consideration of ways that we can increase the information bandwidth of such systems using physically embodied files. We believe this research identifies an important area that tangible interaction designers should explore given the dominance of file systems in computing tasks