clarke@csri.toronto.edu (Jim Clarke) (11/09/88)
GRAPHICS & INTERACTION SEMINAR - Friday, November 11, 3 p.m. in GB 244
(GB = Galbraith Building, 35 St. George Street)
D. Austin Henderson
Xerox PARC
Intelligent Systems Laboratory
"Rooms, A Multiple, Virtual-Workspace Interace
to Support User Task Switching"
An interface is presented that is designed to help users switch among tasks
on which they are concurrently working. Nine desirable properties for such
an interface are derived. It is argued that a key constraint to building
interfaces that support task switching is that low user-overhead switching
among tasks requires a large amount of display space, whereas actual
display space is limited. A virtual workspace design is presented that
greatly speeds the inevitable task-switching induced window faulting. The
resulting interface is presented as a study in theory-based human-interface
design. It is shown how in this case theory is important in inspiring a
design, but design entailments outside the theory raise new issues that
must be faced to make the design viable. These design experiences, in
turn, help inspire new theory.
Ce papier decrit un interface concu pour aider les utilisateurs a choisir
parmi des taches auxquelles ils travaillent en parallele. Neuf particular-
ites souhaitables pour un tel interface sont deduites. Une contrainte ma-
jeure concernaut la productivite des utilisateurs est que changer tde tache
sans beaucoup d'effort par l'utilisateur necessite une grande surface
d'ecran, alors que la surface disponible est limitee. L'on presente ici
une conception d'espace virtuel de travail qui acceler notablement les
fautes de fenetres inevitablement causees par le changement de tache. L'on
montre comment les consequences de la conceptionde base soulevent d'autres
problemes qu'il faut resoudre pour rendre viable la conception finale.
--
Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
(416) 978-4058
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