Study of using a multi-touch tabletop technology to facilitate collaboration,interaction, and awareness in co-located environment

This study aimed to evaluate how differently co-located users perform and interact while solving problems by using existing and newly developed interaction mechanisms of a multi-touch tabletop system on a large-size tabletop display. Furthermore, this study aimed to investigate users’ perceived situation awareness due to the system. This study conducted one experiment and introduced three newly developed interaction mechanisms: two-way rubber band, drag-and-response, and centre collection area. Two-way rubber band enables users not only to send but also to request digital objects. Drag-and-response allows users to accept or to reject digital objects sent by others; therefore, it eliminates conflicting situations and interference. Centre collection area stores, organises, and manages shared digital resources on a surface of a tabletop display, so that users have an overall picture of available resources. This paper discusses results of an experiment, research findings, and implications along with conclusions and several suggestions for future development and research.     

Dynamic tabletop interfaces for increasing creativity

We designed a tabletop brainwriting interface to examine the effects of time pressure and social pressure on the creative performance. After positioning this study with regard to creativity research and human activity in dynamic environments, we present our interface and experiment. Thirty-two participants collaborated (by groups of four) on the tabletop brainwriting task under four conditions of time pressure and two conditions of social pressure. The results show that time pressure increased the quantity of ideas produced and, to some extent, increased the originality of ideas. However, it also deteriorated user experience. Besides, social pressure increased quantity of ideas as well as motivation, but decreased collaboration. We discuss the implications for creativity research and Human–Computer Interaction. Anyhow, our results suggest that the Press factor, operationalized by Time- or Social-pressure, should be considered as a powerful lever to enhance the effectiveness of creative problem solving methods.     

TangiWheel: A Widget for Manipulating Collections on Tabletop Displays Supporting Hybrid Input Modality

In this paper we present TangiWheel,a collection manipulation widget for tabletop displays.Our implementation is flexible,allowing either multi-touch or interaction,or even a hybrid scheme to better suit user choice and convenience.Different TangiWheel aspects and features are compared with other existing widgets for collection manipulation.The study reveals that TangiWheel is the first proposal to support a hybrid input modality with large resemblance levels between touch and tangible interaction styles.Several experiments were conducted to evaluate the techniques used in each input scheme for a better understanding of tangible surface interfaces in complex tasks performed by a single user (e.g.,involving a typical master-slave exploration pattern).The results show that tangibles perform significantly better than fingers,despite dealing with a greater number of interactions,in situations that require a large number of acquisitions and basic manipulation tasks such as establishing location and orientation.However,when users have to perform multiple exploration and selection operations that do not require previous basic manipulation tasks,for instance when collections are fixed in the interface layout,touch input is significantly better in terms of required time and number of actions.Finally,when a more elastic collection layout or more complex additional insertion or displacement operations are needed,the hybrid and tangible approaches clearly outperform finger-based interactions.     

User discomfort,work posture and muscle activity while using a touchscreen in a desktop PC setting

An experimental study was conducted to evaluate physical risk factors associated with the use of touchscreen in a desktop personal computer (PC) setting. Subjective rating of visual/body discomfort, shoulder and neck muscle activity, elbow movement and user-preferred positions of the workstation were quantified from 24 participants during a standardised computer use task with a standard keyboard and a mouse (traditional setting), with a touchscreen and the standard keyboard (mixed-use condition) and with the touchscreen only. The use of a touchscreen was associated with a significant increase of subjective discomfort on the shoulder, neck and fingers, myoelectric activity of shoulder and neck muscles and percentage of task duration that arms were in the air. Participants placed the touchscreen closer and lower when using touch interfaces compared with the traditional setting. Results suggest that users would need more frequent breaks and proper armrests to reduce physical risks associated with the use of a touchscreen in desktop PC settings.

Statement of Relevance: In this study, subjective discomfort, work posture and muscle activity of touchscreendesktop PC users were quantitatively evaluated. The findings of this study can be used to understand potential risksfrom the use of a touchscreen desktop PC and to suggest design recommendations for computer workstations with the touchscreen.     

Designs on objects: imaginative practice,aesthetic categorisation,and the design of multimedia archiving support

This paper discusses the collaborative evolution of a digital system to provide support for landscape architects and other design professionals in storing, encountering and retrieving large bodies of 'inspirational objects', mostly in the form of images. The system combines visual 'weak indexing' of objects through placing them in a visual environment, with easy-to-use methods for allocating keywords to objects on a variety of dimensions. The system design is informed by ethnographic observations of landscape architects' work, and by experience gained with earlier prototypes. The features of the system are described, and illustrated with a scenario of use in landscape architectural work.     

A 2D–3D integrated tabletop environment for multi‐user collaboration

This paper proposes a novel tabletop display system for natural communication and flexible information sharing. The proposed system is specifically designed to integrate two‐dimensional (2D) and three‐dimensional (3D) user interfaces by using a multi‐user stereoscopic display, IllusionHole. The proposed system takes awareness into consideration and provides both 2D and 3D information and user interfaces. On the display, a number of standard Windows desktop environments are provided as personal workspaces, as well as a shared workspace with a dedicated graphical user interface. In the personal workspaces, users can simultaneously access existing applications and data, and exchange information between personal and shared workspaces. In this way, the proposed system can seamlessly integrate personal, shared, 2D, and 3D workspaces with conventional user interfaces and effectively support communication and information sharing. To demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed display system, a modeling application was implemented. A preliminary experiment confirmed the effectiveness of this system. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Believable interaction with a quasi‐tangible tabletop interface

In this paper, we present a believable interaction mechanism for manipulation multiple objects in ubiquitous/augmented virtual environment. A believable interaction in multimodal framework is defined as a persistent and consistent process according to contextual experiences and common‐senses on the feedbacks. We present a tabletop interface as a quasi‐tangible framework to provide believable processes. An enhanced tabletop interface is designed to support multimodal environment. As an exemplar task, we applied the concept to fast accessing and manipulating distant objects. A set of enhanced manipulation mechanisms is presented for remote manipulations including inertial widgets, transformable tabletop, and proxies. The proposed method is evaluated in both performance and user acceptability in comparison with previous approaches. The proposed technique uses intuitive hand gestures and provides higher level of believability. It can also support other types of accessing techniques such as browsing and manipulation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Collaboration Among Designers: Analysing an Activity for System Development

Workplace studies provide an important input to system development, yet there is no straightforward way of translating empirical results into requirements. This study contributes to the development of methods by reporting an activity theory based approach consisting of (i) field observations, (ii) modelling and (iii) a specific task analysis for system requirements. The research informed the further development of the Build-it system, a multi-user system designed to support co-located interaction between designers in engineering and architecture, and other stakeholders such as clients, operators, or inhabitants. The background research was conducted in four engineering companies and comprised of meeting observations, a questionnaire on design collaboration (n=94) and the analysis of 20 artefacts. The findings indicate that collaboration is of critical importance to the design process, and at least some of the tasks in engineering design could be supported by a system like Build-it. The task analysis for system requirements involved potential users from engineering but extended the scope to other domains, namely architecture and chemical process engineering (n=22). In all three domains a multi-user system like Build-it would be advantageous; however, the specific requirements varied more than expected. The study critically reflects on the use of generic concepts and the process of conducting research for the purpose of understanding work for design.     

面向多用户交互桌面的界面管理系统

针对多用户交互桌面的界面管理问题,通过需求分析、界面建模、原型实现与用户研究四个阶段的研究,提出了一个完整的界面管理方案.首先基于对交互式桌面水平显示、直接输入以及多用户使用三个特性的分析,提出了桌面界面管理中输入管理、布局管理、权限管理和冲突管理四个方面的新需求,这些显著区别于台式计算机上的界面管理.在此基础上,设计了层次式的桌面交互界面模型,它自底向上由处理多用户输入的输入管理层、控制交互界面的对象管理层、以及基于树状结构组织的图形对象层组成.进而,实现了多用户桌面的交互界面管理系统uTablePlatform,并开展了实际的用户研究.4 组测试者在uTablePlatform 上分别完成了一次旅行规划的任务,观察和问卷结果表明本文设计并实现的界面管理系统可以有效的帮助用户完成桌面交互任务.     

多轴微细铣削机床的精度设计方法研究

高精度机床是实现微细加工的基础,目前对其设计主要还是依赖于经验或直观地根据加工精度要求来选取各个运动轴的精度,不能满足多轴微细铣削机床设计的需要. 以精度分析与精度分配为主要内容的精度设计方法,针对一种新型桌面五轴联动微细铣削机床,构建主要包括各运动轴定位精度的运动误差模型,求解各运动轴精度对末端精度的影响分布趋势,完成精度分析. 基于末端运动精度要求和关键设计参数,合理设置直线轴与旋转轴的精度要求,在工作空间内分别对B轴和C轴依次进行精度求解,实现各运动轴的运动精度优化与分配, 指导设计时科学地对各运动轴零部件进行选型.此设计方法对于多轴联动的中大型机床设计也具有一定的推广价值．