Interface currents: Supporting fluent collaboration on tabletop displays (original) (raw)

Interface currents: Supporting co-located collaborative work on tabletop displays

2005

Large screen vertical and horizontal displays provide new opportunities to support individual and collaborative activities especially in terms of creativity and design tasks. The size of these displays introduces several unique opportunities such as co-located collaboration but at the same time issues for interface designers such as: potential difficulties of reaching workspace items far away from one's current position at the display, and the tendency of people to walk around when using a wall display or sit in various positions around a tabletop display. Thus, in contrast to traditional interfaces, large display interfaces need to support access to workspace items from a variety of positions at the display. In order to improve access to workspace items, providing better support for obtaining and sharing items and for mobility at the display which can be very important to improve creative processes, we propose a novel interaction metaphor, the so-called Interface Current, that allows interface components to play a more active role in the workspace activity.

Interface Currents: Supporting Co-located Work on Tabletop Displays

Large screen vertical and horizontal displays provide new opportunities to support individual and collaborative activities especially in terms of creativity and design tasks. The size of these displays introduces several unique opportunities such as co-located collaboration but at the same time issues for interface designers such as: potential difficulties of reaching workspace items far away from one's current position at the display, and the tendency of people to walk around when using a wall display or sit in various positions around a tabletop display. Thus, in contrast to traditional interfaces, large display interfaces need to support access to workspace items from a variety of positions at the display. In order to improve access to workspace items, providing better support for obtaining and sharing items and for mobility at the display which can be very important to improve creative processes, we propose a novel interaction metaphor, the so-called Interface Current, that allows interface components to play a more active role in the workspace activity.

Interface Currents: Evaluating a Fluid Interface for Tabletop Collaboration

Large screen vertical and horizontal displays provide new opportunities to support individual and collaborative activities especially in terms of creativity and design tasks. The size of these displays introduces several unique opportunities such as co-located collaboration but at the same time issues for interface designers such as: potential difficulties of reaching workspace items far away from one's current position at the display, and the tendency of people to walk around when using a wall display or sit in various positions around a tabletop display. Thus, in contrast to traditional interfaces, large display interfaces need to support access to workspace items from a variety of positions at the display. In order to improve access to workspace items, providing better support for obtaining and sharing items and for mobility at the display which can be very important to improve creative processes, we propose a novel interaction metaphor, the so-called Interface Current, that allows interface components to play a more active role in the workspace activity.

Evaluating the effects of fluid interface components on tabletop collaboration

Proceedings of the working …, 2006

Tabletop displays provide exciting opportunities to support individual and collaborative activities such as planning, organizing, and storyboarding. It has been previously suggested that continuous flow of interface items can ease information access and exploration on a tabletop workspace, yet this concept has not been adequately studied. This paper presents an exploratory user study of Interface Currents, a reconfigurable and mobile tabletop interface component that offers a controllable flow for interface items placed on its surface. Our study shows that Interface Currents supported information access and sharing on a tabletop workspace. The study findings also demonstrate that mobility, flexibility, and general adjustability of Interface Currents are important factors in providing interface support for variations in task and group interactions.

ConnecTables: Dynamic coupling of displays for the flexible creation of shared workspaces

Proceedings of the …, 2001

We present the ConnecTable, a new mobile, networked and context-aware information appliance that provides affordances for pen-based individual and cooperative work as well as for the seamless transition between the two. In order to dynamically enlarge an interaction area for the purpose of shared use, a flexible coupling of displays has been realized that overcomes the restrictions of display sizes and borders. Two ConnecTable displays dynamically form a homogeneous display area when moved close to each other. The appropriate triggering signal comes from built-in sensors allowing users to temporally combine their individual displays to a larger shared one by a simple physical movement in space. Connected ConnecTables allow their users to work in parallel on an ad-hoc created shared workspace as well as exchanging information by simply shuffling objects from one display to the other. We discuss the user interface and related issues as well as the software architecture. We also present the physical realization of the ConnecTables.

A user study explores the utility of storage bins on tabletop display collaboration

T raditional tables have long been the preferred work environment for many collaboration tasks such as planning, scheduling, brainstorming, design, and layout activities. Unfortunately, collaborating at current digital tabletop displays is often awkward and frustrating. This might, in part, stem from a lack of suitable tools for organizing and sharing information. The ability to store resource items anywhere in the workspace and move them around can be critical for coordinating task and group interactions on a table. However, existing casual storage techniques for digital workspaces only provide access to stored items at the periphery of the workspace, potentially compromising collaborative interactions at a digital tabletop display. To facilitate this storage behavior in a digital tabletop workspace, we developed the storage bin mobile storage mechanism, which combines the space-preserving features of existing peripheral storage mechanisms with the capability to relocate stored items in the workspace.