Glowing tags

Tagging physical objects to get a link from the physical world into some kind of technology has been done for a long time. The most commonly known is probably the barcodes that is used in five billion scans every day. During a project at Xerox Research Centre Europe in Cambridge, we came across the concept of Glow Tags. It is partly an expansion of the more traditional tags by, from a user perspective, making them more active. In many ways it is a logical next step in the development of tags. This paper will present the original conception of Glow Tags and illustrate what implications it could have for users. Further different forms of interaction styles such as playful, purposeful, and supportive will be considered in relation to the use of Glow Tags.