Pen-based interaction techniques for organizing material on an electronic whiteboard

Abstract

This paper presents a scheme for extending an informal, pen-based whiteboard system (the Tivoli application on the Xerox LiveBoard) to provide interaction techniques that enable groups of users in informal meetings to easily organize and rearrange material and to manage the space on the board. The techniques are based on the direct manipulation of boundaries and the implicit recognition of regions. The techniques include operations for shrinking and rearranging, structured borders that tessellate the board, freeform enclosures that can be split, fused, and linked, and collapsible annotations. Experience with using these techniques, the results of a user test, some design trade-offs and lessons, and future directions are discussed.