In the field of augmented furniture, many pieces of furniture use technology to comment on human interaction. One piece, Nikolovska’ Conversation Table, uses microphone and LEDs to comment on dominance in conversation. This paper develops this notion further by incorporating psychological research to create a furniture set that can read subtleties in dyadic interaction. This Coordination Table is a table and two chairs that use sensors to read the posture of each person. A connected laptop analyzes this data in realtime to calculate how similar the users¿¿¿¿ posture is. According to psychological research, people with similar posture, especially over time, tend to have higher rapport. The Coordination Table uses this finding to estimate the rapport currently experienced by the dyad, based on its data.
This paper outlines the software and technology used to construct a prototype Coordination Table. The table was also informally tested to prove that it could detect differences in posture due to higher or lower rapport. Although it has not been evaluated to work exactly as expected, it was shown to detect differences between users engaging in different activities. The author also discusses potential applications for the Coordination Table technology, including its usefulness for psychological research, its potential utility in performance art, and its potential feasibility as a commercial product.