Channels and Substrates: Distributed Cognition as an Interaction Model for Ubiquitous Analytics

2026-06-10

AI Summary

Traditional human-computer interaction models struggle to address the complex interaction demands arising in ubiquitous analytics scenarios involving multiple devices, users, and environments. This work proposes a “Channels and Substrates” framework grounded in distributed cognition theory, modeling interaction as the propagation of representational states across diverse substrates—including mind, language, body, artifacts, and devices—and generalizing the concept of visual channels from visualization into a universal input/output mechanism adaptable to multimodal and multi-device contexts. By transcending the assumption of a single interface, the framework successfully reconstructs and explains the interaction logic of various ubiquitous, immersive, and context-aware analytical systems, demonstrating its expressiveness and broad applicability.

Abstract

Traditional HCI interaction models assume a single monolithic interface and a stable sensorimotor loop. These models fit poorly with cross-device (XVA) and ubiquitous analytics (UA), where interactive data sensemaking unfolds across multiple devices, artifacts, and people in disparate settings from the office to the factory floor. In this paper, we show how interaction in ubiquitous analytics can be modeled using distributed cognition as propagation of representational state across substrates -- minds, speech, bodies, artifacts, and devices -- rather than as traffic through a single interface. On this basis we introduce input and output channels as generalizations of the visual channels from data visualization: just as visual channels carry data through properties of the visual substrate, input and output channels carry representational state through substrates whose availability, suitability, and preferability depend on context. We demonstrate the channels and substrates framework by reanalyzing several ubiquitous, immersive, and situated analytics systems.

Problem

• Ubiquitous Analytics
• Distributed Cognition
• Cross-device Interaction
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Interaction Models

Innovation

• distributed cognition
• ubiquitous analytics
• substrates
• input/output channels
• cross-device interaction