Interface Currents: Evaluating a Fluid Interface for Tabletop Collaboration (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.

How do interactive tabletop systems influence collaboration?

This paper examines some aspects of the usefulness of interactive tabletop systems, if and how these impact collaboration. We chose creative problem solving such as brainstorming as an application framework to test several collaborative media: the use of pen-and-paper tools, the ''around-the-table'' form factor, the digital tabletop interface, the attractiveness of interaction styles. Eighty subjects in total (20 groups of four members) participated in the experiments. The evaluation criteria were task performance, collaboration patterns (especially equity of contributions), and users' subjective experience. The ''aroundthe-table'' form factor, which is hypothesized to promote social comparison, increased performance and improved collaboration through an increase of equity. Moreover, the attractiveness of the tabletop device improved subjective experience and increased motivation to engage in the task. However, designing attractiveness seems a highly challenging issue, since overly attractive interfaces may distract users from the task.

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.

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.

Interface currents: Supporting fluent collaboration on tabletop displays

Smart graphics: 5th …, 2005

Large horizontal displays provide new opportunities to support individual and collaborative activities such as creativity and organizational tasks. We present Interface Currents, a fluid interaction technique designed to support face-to-face collaboration by improving access to and sharing of workspace items. Interface Currents are flexible containers that provide a controllable flow of interface items that support creativity during collaborative tasks and enable intuitive organization and sharing of digital information around horizontal displays.

Territoriality in collaborative tabletop workspaces

Proceedings of the 2004 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work - CSCW '04, 2004

Researchers seeking alternatives to traditional desktop computers have begun exploring the potential collaborative benefits of digital tabletop displays. However, there are still many open issues related to the design of collaborative tabletop interfaces, such as whether these systems should automatically orient workspace items or enforce ownership of workspace content. Understanding the natural interaction practices that people use during tabletop collaboration with traditional media (e.g., pen and paper) can help to address these issues. Interfaces that are modeled on these practices will have the additional advantage of supporting the interaction skills people have developed over years of collaborating at traditional tables. To gain a deeper understanding of these interaction practices we conducted two observational studies of traditional tabletop collaboration in both casual and formal settings. Our results reveal that collaborators use three types of tabletop territories to help coordinate their interactions within the shared tabletop workspace: personal, group, and storage territories. Findings from a spatial analysis of collaborators' tabletop interactions reveal important properties of these tabletop territories. In order to provide a comprehensive picture of the role of tabletop territoriality in collaboration, we conclude with a synthesis of our findings and previous research findings and with several relevant design implications.