Continuous user interfaces for seamless task migration

Abstract

In this paper, we propose the Task Migration framework that provides a vocabulary and constructs to decompose a task into its components, and to examine issues that arise when it is performed using multiple devices. In a world of mobile devices and multiple computing devices, users are often forced to interrupt their tasks, move their data and information back and forth among the various devices manually, recreate the interaction context, and then resume the task on another device. We refer to this break from the task at hand as a task disconnect. Our objective is to study how software can bridge this task disconnect, enabling users to seamlessly transition a task across devices using continuous user interface. The framework is intended to help designers of interactive systems understand where breaks in task continuity may occur, and to proactively incorporate features and capabilities to mitigate their impact or avoid such Task Disconnects altogether. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.