A toolset for creating iconic interfaces for interactive workspaces

Abstract

To work productively in an interactive workspace, users need effective interfaces for seamlessly sharing, annotating, and juxtaposing digital information across heterogeneous devices. In this paper, we present an interface toolset for constructing and using iconic interfaces for interactive workspaces. Using an iconic representation of the physical workspace, users can quickly and easily relocate applications and redirect input across devices. The toolset provides a graphical tool for rapidly constructing iconic representations for various workspaces, supports an existing interactive workspace infrastructure, and is engineered to be portable to others. A usability evaluation showed that the interaction design of the interfaces created with our toolset is effective for redirection and relocation tasks. Our results provide the first empirical baseline for comparing alternative interfaces for interactive workspaces. The use of our toolset facilitates more productive use of interactive workspaces for both individual and group work and is available for download today. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2005.