Showing papers on "User interface published in 1993"

Toolglass and magic lenses: the see-through interface

Abstract: Toolglass™ widgets are new user interface tools that can appear, as though on a transparent sheet of glass, between an application and a traditional cursor. They can be positioned with one hand while the other positions the cursor. The widgets provide a rich and concise vocabulary for operating on application objects. These widgets may incorporate visual filters, called Magic Lens™ filters, that modify the presentation of application objects to reveal hidden information, to enhance data of interest, or to suppress distracting information. Together, these tools form a see-through interface that offers many advantages over traditional controls. They provide a new style of interaction that better exploits the user’ s everyday skills. They can reduce steps, cursor motion, and errors. Many widgets can be provided in a user inter face, by designers and by users, without requiring dedicated screen space. In addition, lenses provide rich context -dependent feedback and the ability to view details and context simultaneous ly. Our widgets and lenses can be combined to form operation and viewing macros, and can be used over multiple applications. CR Categories and Subject Descriptors: I.3.6 [Computer Graphics]: Methodology and Techniques- interaction techniques; H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces- interaction styles; I.3.3 [ Computer Graphics]: Picture/Image Generation- viewing algorithms; I.3.4 [Computer Graphics]: Graphics Utilities - graphics editors

Developing user interfaces: ensuring usability through product & process

Abstract: Ensuring Usability in Human-Computer Interaction. THE PRODUCT. User Interaction Design Guidance: Standards, Guidelines, and Style Guides. Interaction Styles. THE PROCESS. Iterative, Evaluation-Centered User Interaction Development. An Overview of Systems Analysis and Design. Techniques for Representing User Interaction Designs. More on Using the User Action Notation. Usability Specification Techniques. Rapid Prototyping of Interaction Design. Formative Evaluation. User Interface Development Tools. Making It Work: Ensuring Usability in Your Development Environment. Index.

The Chaco user`s guide. Version 1.0

Abstract: Graph partitioning is a fundamental problem in many scientific settings. This document describes the capabilities and operation of Chaco, a software package designed to partition graphs. Chaco allows for recursive application of any of several different methods for finding small edge separators in weighted graphs. These methods include inertial, spectral, Kernighan-Lin and multilevel methods in addition to several simpler strategies. Each of these methods can be used to partition the graph into two, four or eight pieces at each level of recursion. In addition, the Kernighan-Lin method can be used to improve partitions generated by any of the other methods. Brief descriptions of these methods are provided, along with references to relevant literature. The user interface, input/output formats and appropriate settings for a variety of code parameters are discussed in detail, and some suggestions on algorithm selection are offered.

System and method for automatically correlating user preferences with a TV program information database

Abstract: A user interface which can access downloaded TV program information, which can be continually updated and provided either "over the air", over cable or satellite transmission paths or other "fast data" paths, and automatically correlate this information with the preferences of the user, to create and display at least one program information database based upon the results of the correlation.

Virtual fixtures: Perceptual tools for telerobotic manipulation

Abstract: In order to enhance operator performance and understanding within remote environments, most research and development of telepresence systems has been directed towards improving the fidelity of the link between operator and environment. Although higher fidelity interfaces are important to the advancement of a telepresence system, the beneficial effects of corrupting the link between operator and remote environment by introducing abstract perceptual information into the interface called virtual fixtures are described. >

Systems and methods for operating ambulatory medical devices such as drug delivery devices

Abstract: An infusion pump system dispenses a drug to a patient in accordance with a predetermined therapy. The system includes a drug delivery system controlled by a microprocessor and replaceable memory modules coupled to the microprocessor for configuring a specific pump user interface and other characteristics required for the therapy. Information specific to a particular patient is entered through input structure on the pump. The memory modules include plural memory sections for storing different types of information.

System for locating and communicating with mobile vehicles

Abstract: A vehicle location system which provides a plurality of cellular systems that each includes a memory for identifying the cellular subscriber stations that are based in the particular system and visiting cellular subscriber stations based in another of the systems. The plurality of cellular systems include a roaming network that interconnects and transfers data in the memory relative to the presence of home and visiting cellular subscriber stations in the systems. An interface computer is provided to interconnect with at least one of the plurality of cellular systems. The interface computer accesses data in the roaming network relative to predetermined cellular subscriber stations. A location computer interconnects with the interface computer and translates the interface computer data relative to these predetermined cellular subscriber stations into location data that indicates the position of each cellular subscriber stations based upon the known position of the particular cellular system in which the subscriber station is currently registered. A user interface, that may include messaging systems and an electronic mail system, interconnect between a user and the location computer and allows access to location and related data relative to specified fleets of subscriber stations.

System and method for finding a movie of interest in a large movie database

Abstract: A system comprising a user interface which can access downloaded electronic programs (e.g. pay per view movies) and information records related to said programs, which can be continually updated and provided over cable or satellite transmission paths or other "fast data" paths, and which can automatically correlate the program information with the preferences of the user, to create and display at least one personalized information database based upon the results of the correlation.

Iterative user-interface design

Abstract: A method for developing user interfaces by refining them iteratively over several versions is presented. Each iteration is subjected to user testing or other usability-evaluation methods designed to uncover usability problems. This method not only eliminates problems of this nature, but also allows designers to take advantage of any insights into user needs that emerge from the tests. The author describes four case studies where the median improvement in overall usability from the first to the last iteration was 165%, and the median improvement per iteration was 38%. >

Expert system for providing interactive assistance in solving problems such as health care management

Abstract: A problem solving expert system is provided which is particularly useful in managing the health care of individual patients. A description of a problem (e.g., medical condition) and a proposed solution therefor (e.g., medical procedure) is entered via a user interface. A topical library is searched to identify information relevant to the problem and proposed solution. Access to the identified information is available in either a full text or synopsis format, to assist a user in assessing the appropriateness of the proposed solution. An inference engine provides a recommendation to the user as to the appropriateness of the proposed solution based on information entered via the user interface and rules associated with the inference engine. A user can interact with the inference engine in either a structured or guided mode. The structured mode is directed to inexperienced users and dynamically generates questions in response to previous answers provided by the user to enable the inference engine to make its recommendation. The guided mode is directed to experienced users and provides a predefined questionnaire enabling the user to decide which questions to answer in order to obtain a recommendation.

DIVE A multi-user virtual reality system

Abstract: The Distributed Interactive Virtual Environment (DIVE) is a heterogeneous distributed virtual reality system based on UNIX and Internet networking protocols. Each participating process has a copy of a replicated database and changes are propagated to the other processes with reliable multicast protocols. DIVE provides a dynamic virtual environment where applications and users can enter and leave the environment on demand. Several user-related abstractions have been introduced to ease the task of application and user interface construction. >

User interface, method, and apparatus selecting and playing channels having video, audio, and/or text streams

Abstract: A user interface is displayed on a computer system capable of processing one or more data streams. The user interface has one or more displayed representations, where each of the displayed representations corresponds to one of the data streams. A user of the computer system selectively adjusts the processing of each of the data streams using the corresponding displayed representation of the user interface. In a preferred embodiment, in which the computer system is a system for multicasting audio, video, and/or text data streams, the user interface has a video window for displaying the video stream, a set of audio controls for controlling the play of the audio stream, and a text reader bar for displaying the text stream.

System for managing a plurality of computer jukeboxes

Abstract: A method and apparatus is shown for managing a plurality of computer jukeboxes (13) at different locations from a central station. Each jukebox (13) includes processor means (121) for controlling the computer jukebox (13), storage and retrieval means (93) for data, display means (125) for selection menus, audio production means (127) for playing musical records, and a user interface (123) enabling patrons to communicate with the processor means. The central station (11) can be used to download musical recording data to each computer jukebox (13), and each computer jukebox (13) can upload usage data to the central station (11).

Learning interface agents

Abstract: Interface agents are computer programs that employ Artificial Intelligence techniques in order to provide assistance to a user dealing with a particular computer application. The paper discusses an interface agent which has been modelled closely after the metaphor of a personal assistant. The agent learns how to assist the user by (i) observing the user's actions and imitating them, (ii) receiving user feedback when it takes wrong actions and (iii) being trained by the user on the basis of hypothetical examples. The paper discusses how this learning agent was implemented using memory-based learning and reinforcement learning techniques. It presents actual results from two prototype agents built using these techniques: one for a meeting scheduling application and one for electronic mail. It argues that the machine learning approach to building interface agents is a feasible one which has several advantages over other approaches: it provides a customized and adaptive solution which is less costly and ensures better user acceptability. The paper also argues what the advantages are of the particular learning techniques used.

The early history of Smalltalk

Abstract: Most ideas come from previous ideas. The sixties, particularly in the ARPA community, gave rise to a host of notions about “human-computer symbiosis” through interactive time-shared computers, graphics screens and pointing devices. Advanced computer languages were invented to simulate complex systems such as oil refineries and semi-intelligent behavior. The soon to follow paradigm shift of modern personal computing, overlapping window interfaces, and object-oriented design came from seeing the work of the sixties as something more than a “better old thing”. That is, more than a better way: to do mainframe computing; for end-users to invoke functionality; to make data structures more abstract. Instead the promise of exponential growth in computing/$/volume demanded that the sixties be regarded as “almost a new thing” and to find out what the actual “new things” might be. For example, one would compute with a handheld “Dynabook” in a way that would not be possible on a shared mainframe; millions of potential users meant that the user interface would have to become a learning environment along the lines of Montessori and Bruner; and needs for large scope, reduction in complexity, and end-user literacy would require that data and control structures be done away with in favor of a more biological scheme of protected universal cells interacting only through messages that could mimic any desired behavior.Early Smalltalk was the first complete realization of these new points of view as parented by its many predecessors in hardware, language and user interface design. It became the exemplar of the new computing, in part, because we were actually trying for a qualitative shift in belief structures—a new Kuhnian paradigm in the same spirit as the invention of the printing press—and thus took highly extreme positions which almost forced these new styles to be invented.

Noncommand user interfaces

Abstract: ost current Uls are fairly similar and belong to one of two common types: either the traditional alphanumeric full-screen terminals with a keyboard and function keys, or the more modern WIMP workstations with windows,/cons, menus, and a pointing device. In fact, most UI standards released since 1983 have been remarkably similar, and it is that category of canonical windOw system that is referred to as \"current\" throughout this article. In contrast, the next generation of UIs may move beyond the standard WIMP paradigm to involve elements such as virtual realities, head-mounted displays, sound and speech, pen and gesture recognition, animation and multimedia, limited artificial intelligence, and highly portable computers with cellular or other wireless communication capabilities. It is difficult to envision the use of this hodgepodge of technologies in a single, united UI design, and indeed, it may be one of the defining characteristics of nextgeneration UIs that they abandon the principle of conforming to a canonical interface style and instead become more radically tailored to the requirements of individual tasks. In any case, all previous generations of UIS, whether batch-, line-oriented, full-screen, or WIMP, have all had one defining characteristic in common: They were all

How fluent is your interface?: designing for international users

Abstract: To successfully build bridges between worlds, user interface designers must increase their awareness of cross-cultural differences, and make changes to the traditional software development process. Creating fluent interfaces for international markets goes beyond translating text and date, time, and number formats. This paper presents and explains a cross-cultural checklist of issues including text, local formats, images, symbols, colors, flow, and product functionality. Suggestions for an effective international product development cycle are provided. The suggested development cycle incorporates international design feedback and usability testing before the initial product is released.

Adaptive User Interfaces: Principles and Practice

Abstract: Introduction (T. Kuhme, M. Schneider-Hufschmidt). Part I: Setting the stage. Part II: Modelling users, tasks, and dialogs. Part III: Prototypes and Systems. Part IV: Evaluation. About the authors. Subject index.

Braque: design of an interface to support user interaction in information retrieval

Abstract: We suggest that information retrieval is most appropriately considered as an inherently interactive process, and describe the design of an interface to a bibliographic information retrieval system that supports user interaction in an integrated fashion. A significant aspect of the interface design is its dependence upon a two-level hypertext model of information retrieval system databases, and the seamless support of a variety of information seeking strategies through the use of this model, and of a model of dimensions of information seeking behaviors.

Bridging the paper and electronic worlds: the paper user interface

Abstract: Since its invention millenia ago, paper has served as one of our primary communications media. Its inherent physical properties make it easy to use, transport, and store, and cheap to manufacture. Despite these advantages, paper remains a second class citizen in the electronic world. In this paper, we present a new technology for bridging the paper and the electronic worlds. In this new technology, the user interface moves beyond the workstation and onto paper itself. We describe paper user interface technology and its implementation in a particular system called XAX.

Animation: from cartoons to the user interface

Abstract: User interfaces are often based on static presentations, a model ill suited for conveying change. Consequently, events on the screen frequently startle and confuse users. Cartoon animation, in contrast, is exceedingly successful at engaging its audience; even the most bizarre events are easily comprehended. The Self user interface has served as a testbed for the application of cartoon animation techniques as a means of making the interface easier to understand and more pleasant to use. Attention to timing and transient detail allows Self objects to move solidly. Use of cartoon-style motion blur allows Self objects to move quickly and still maintain their comprehensibility. Self objects arrive and depart smoothly, without sudden materializations and disappearances, and they rise to the front of overlapping objects smoothly through the use of dissolve. Anticipating motion with a small contrary motion and pacing the middle of transitions faster than the endpoints results in smoother and clearer movements. Despite the differences between user interfaces and cartoons --cartoons are frivolous, passive entertainment and user interfaces are serious, interactive tools -- cartoon animation has much to lend to user interfaces to realize both affective and cognitive benefits. *This work was originally supported by Sun Microsystems Laboratories, an NSF Graduate Fellowship, National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Grant #CCR-8657631, IBM Powell Foundation, Apple Computer, Inc., Cray Laboratories, Tandem, NCR Corporation, Texas Instruments, Inc., and Digital Equipment Corporation.

Encapsulating knowledge for intelligent automatic interaction objects selection

Abstract: TRIDENT is a set of interactive tools that automatically generates a user interface for highly-interactive business-oriented applications. It includes an intelligent interaction objects selection based on three different concepts. First, on object oriented typology classifies abstract interaction objects to allow a presentation independent selection. Second, guidelines are translated into automatic rules to select abstract interaction objects from both an application data model and a dialog model. Third, these guidelines are encapsulated in a decision tree technique to make the reasoning obvious to the user. This approach guarantees a target environment independent user interface. Once this specified, abstract interaction objects are mapped into concrete interaction objects to produce the observable interface.

Method and apparatus for execution of operations in a flash memory array

Abstract: A flash memory system includes a user interface and array controller The user interface receives the user command issued by the processor and has the ability to queue a plurality of commands for execution The user interface further functions as an arbiter to control the priority of commands to be executed The array controller performs the operations on the flash array such as program and erase The array controller consists of a general purpose processor with program memory which is programmable by the user The program memory stores one or more algorithms that can be executed by the array controller The algorithm is selected according to the command received at the user interface The algorithms can be customized simply by programming the program memory The system further provides an interrupt mechanism which enables the flash memory system to perform a context switch of a higher priority command with the lower priority, but currently executing, command

Apparatus and method for eye tracking interface

Abstract: An eye tracking interface system for generating communication and control functions as a result of pre-defined eye gestures is disclosed. The system includes a detecting device adapted to detect bio-electromagnetic signals generated by eye movements. A first processor receives the detected bio-electromagnetic signals, and generate tokens corresponding to said pre-defined eye gestures. A second processor receives the tokens, and generates command signals based on a protocol correlating tokens to desired command signals. Thereafter, a user interface responds to said command signals, and provides control functions in response to said command signals.

User interface and monitoring functions for automated peritoneal dialysis systems

Abstract: Systems for performing peritoneal dialysis having an improved user interface functions and monitoring capabilities. In one respect, the systems discriminate between alarm conditions that require user intervention to correct and alarm conditions that reflect conditions that are anomalies but typically correct themselves with minimum or no user intervention. In another respect, the systems identify occluded liquid flow paths and discriminate whether the flow path is associated with a liquid source or a liquid destination.

Method and system for customizing a user interface in a computer system

Abstract: Methods for allowing a user to customize an interface for a computer program are provided. The methods allow a user of the computer program flexibility in organizing commands into a menu structure. The methods also allow a user of a computer program to assign a keystroke sequence to a command. The user can then invoke the command by entering the keystroke sequence. A command assigned to a keystroke sequence does not need to be associated with a menu. The methods allow the user of a computer program to predefine parameters for commands. The predefinition allows the user to invoke a command without reentering the parameters. In a preferred embodiments, the methods use a command array that contains an entry for each command. The methods use an array associated with each menu. The arrays contain unique identifiers of the commands that are associated with the menu. These unique identifiers are used to reference entries into the command array. The entries in the command array include a reference to the program code that implements the commands.

Method and system for dynamically sharing user interface displays among a plurality of application program

Abstract: There is provided a system and method for the dynamic sharing of user interfaces and portions of user interfaces. A user interface server coupled to applications, a display object store, and a window management system. The user interface server allows an application developer to provide an application with a user interface that is independent of any particular window management system. The user interface server provides applications with the ability to dynamically load user interfaces from the display object store and to attach any sub-hierarchy of a user interface, stored in the display object store, to a previously loaded user interface. The sub-hierarchy can be attached at any point which is consistent with parent-child relationships for components.

The change and evolution of requirements as a challenge to the practice of software engineering

Abstract: The difficulty of handling changing requirements within traditional development processes is described. The origins of changing user and organizational requirements are discussed and different types are classified. The author identifies a number of ways in which different approaches to design may help to deal with change as well as mechanisms which should underpin effective communication between users and designers. >