Week 8
The Task Gallery: A 3D Window Manager
-George Robertson, Maarten van Dantzich, Daniel Robbins, Mary Czerwinski, Ken Hinckley, Kirsten Risden, David Thiel, Vadim Gorokhovsky
In this paper the authors propose a 3D window management system that is expected to be the next iteration of currently available 2D managers. The authors leverage an art gallery metaphor to quickly familiarize users with the workings of the window manager. All windows can be grouped and arranged on the different walls, ceiling or roof of a room. There can be multiple rooms in the gallery and they can be traversed one by one just like in real life. The project describes some intuitive UI controls for the on screen navigation. Nice animations are used to ease into different views of the 3D system. The authors had predicted that the system would leverage human spatial cognition and perception for easy identification and modification of windows. User studies conducted showed a roughly better window manager but also provided some insight into the pitfalls and potential improvements for the system.
I have used a 3D desktop manager called Real Desktop that uses similar concepts but for desktop management as opposed to window management. Although, I found this manager to be cool and something to show off to your friends, it does not necessarily improve productivity. I did eventually switch back to the 2D desktop once the fancy wore off. I feel there is a room for more interesting research and usability studies in this domain.
Pre-Patterns for Designing Embodied Interactions in Handheld Augmented Reality Games
-Yan Xu, Evan Barba, Iulian Radu, Maribeth Gandy, Richard Shemaka, Brian Schrank, Blair MacIntyre,Tony Tseng
There has been increasing growth in handheld augmented reality games due to the growth of smart phones and better technologies to support augmented reality. In this paper the authors describe a set of 9 pre-patterns for designing handheld AR games which have been obtained from studying previously successful HAR games. These patterns are namely device metaphor, control mapping, design for the seams, world consistency, landmarks, personal presence, living creatures, hiding /revealing information, and body constraint. The device metaphor pattern suggests making games in which the handheld device is equivalent to a real world object. Control mapping suggests mapping physical actions as controllers for game actions. Seamful design suggests making games that are aware of the technological limitations and overcome them with constrained game play. World consistency suggests modeling physical laws in the virtual space of the games. Landmarks suggest establishing connection between digital and physical worlds. Living Creatures suggests building believable game characters. Personal presence models the player in the game space in a realistic manner. Body constraints suggest designing games such that the relative position amongst players is considered in the game. Hidden information suggests creating inherently social games by hiding data. The authors hope that these pre patterns will be used and tested by future HAR game developers to create interesting HAR game worlds.
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