| User-oriented graphics systems for decision support in unstructured tasks | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 3-11 | |
| John L. Bennett | |||
| The quality of graphic interaction languages may be examined in terms of
what the user sees at each interaction point, what he has to know in order to
interpret what he sees, and what actions he can take at the interaction point.
These guiding questions are of special importance in designing graphic
facilities to be used by managers in solving unstructured problems found in
business and industry. Three principles for design respond to the guiding
questions and represent a partial synopsis of what we have learned in our work.
I. Design the context presented to the user at each interaction point to
suggest the actions which a user can take upon that context. II. When processes
are indeterminate (e.g., in unstructured problems), focus design on particular
displayable data representations (e.g. tables, graphs, charts) rather than on
the processes in which representations may be used. III. Design the system to
have an explicit framework so that a user working out a solution to an
unstructured problem can take the graphics system structure for granted as he
concentrates on discovering problem structure. These principles will continue
to be developed, revised, and expanded in our Decision Support Systems project. Keywords: decision support systems, interaction design principles, interaction
language, interactive computer graphics, user-computer communication,
user-oriented design | |||
| Techniques for interactive three dimensional design | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 13-30 | |
| J. A. Brewer; D. C. Anderson | |||
| An experimental graphics system for three dimensional design is described.
Emphasis is placed on 3D interaction techniques used in the design of the
system, together with the overall user-interface. The techniques used involved
two-dimensional input devices and displays only. A 3D cursor is used to
manipulate objects consisting of lines and geometric representations,
appropriate for free-form design. The associative transformation structure
combines with high level data generation directives to provide a flexible and
powerful design environment. The system operates in a dual-minicomputer
configuration involving a dynamic, on-line software package distributed between
an IMLAC PDS-1 and a DEC PDP 11/40. Keywords: computer graphics, graphical interaction, interactive programming,
three-dimensional interactive graphics | |||
| Sketch recognition for computer-aided design | | BIBA | Full-Text | 31-35 | |
| Christopher F. Herot | |||
| This paper presents an approach to improving the interface between the user and the computer by replacing the typical action-response dialogue with a looser scheme in which inferences are drawn from user actions. The recognition of hand-drawn sketches is offered as a paradigm for use of this technique in the field of computer-aided design. In design problems, the computer offers the capabilities of exteriorization and transformation. Although transformation processes are widely used in design aids, the computer has found little use as a medium of exteriorization because of difficulty of graphical input. The program described here employs a model of the user as a means of inferring user intent as a function of sequence, speed, and pressure. It is proposed that this modeling technique can be applied to interactive graphics systems, leading to a better interface for the solution of design problems. | |||
| An actor-based computer animation language | | BIBA | Full-Text | 37-43 | |
| Kenneth M. Kahn | |||
| This paper describes a computer language based upon actor semantics designed especially for computer graphics and animation. The thesis that animation is best facilitated by considering each entity on the display screen as an independent process is discussed and demonstrated by examples. The system is built upon MacLisp and is compatible with Lisp-Logo. The language is designed to be used by both very sophisticated programmers and by school children. | |||
| Human factor considerations for interactive display systems | | BIBA | Full-Text | 45-52 | |
| Harvey Z. Kriloff | |||
| Human Factors data is at present not adequately utilized by the graphics community when designing computer systems. Despite the large volume of such data that already exists, it is loosely structured and difficult to find. A technique for organizing and extrapolating the data is proposed and demonstrated. Sample data is shown for displays (character and general), control systems, software design and display formats in an effort to encourage wider usage of the data. | |||
| An idiosyncratic systems approach to interactive graphics | | BIBA | Full-Text | 53-60 | |
| Nicholas Negroponte | |||
| This paper applauds and emphasizes the Workshop's title, "User-Oriented
Design of Interactive Graphics Systems," but bemoans and condemns its subtitle,
"Application-Specific User Behavior and Cognition." The pros and the cons are
an incomplete but cogent case for consideration of an idiosyncratic systems
approach to interactive graphics systems.
An idiosyncratic system is a personalized system. Personalization means both recognition of and response to the complete range of an individual's characteristics, from physical traits, to work habits, to cognitive styles. Enough evidence exists in the literature of experimental psychology to substantiate the fact that user behavior is not application-specific, but driven by personality and experience. The resulting criteria for a user-oriented interactive graphics system include existential hardware, adaptive representations, inferential input, and graphical conversation. | |||
| A framework of characteristics applicable to graphical user-computer interaction | | BIBAK | Full-Text | 61-71 | |
| Siegfried Treu | |||
| Although the primary beneficiary of interactive computer graphics systems is
supposedly the human user, the latter has normally been forced to adapt to the
former. Instead, the graphical user-computer interface should be deliberately
tailored to accommodate, complement and supplement the user. This can be
achieved by designing hardware and software devices and tools to be responsive
to the user mental processes and preferences involving cognition and affecting
behavior. But efforts at systematic identification and validation of the
significant user-required or user-expected characteristics have been rare. This
paper gives an overview of the background, presents a framework of
characteristics, suggests a differentiation of stages of user-computer
interaction, and, finally, discusses some related methodological problems. Keywords: adaptability, comprehensibility, graphical interface features, interaction
stages, interactive graphics, natural user-computer communication,
perceptibility, user characteristics, user-computer interaction | |||
| On processing information from a glance at a scene: some implications for a syntax and semantics of visual processing | | BIBA | Full-Text | 75-88 | |
| Irving Biederman | |||
| A program of research designed to measure and model the human's capacity for comprehension of displays of real-world scenes is described. The results of experiments on perceiving jumbled and bizarre scenes show that in the first 100 msec. of a single glance at a novel scene, sufficient information is extracted to meet several criteria of scene comprehension. Speed and accuracy of scene perception are mediated by scene schemata -- internal, semantic representations of scenes. | |||
| User-oriented interactive computer graphics | | BIBA | Full-Text | 89-96 | |
| J. C. R. Licklider | |||
| This paper deals with several broad idea-issues relating to interactive
computer graphics, schematic and pictorial. It considers briefly the trends of
the technology and of the market, what the uses and who the users of
user-oriented interactive computer graphics will be, and who will do the
orienting of the technology toward the users. Then it examines: the concept of
stepwise learnability; abstracting graphics functions from graphics
applications; the idea of 'dynamic hieroglyphs'; graphics projected onto the
retina; graphics embedded in LISP- and APL-like languages; knowledge based
graphics; graphic input devices; highly realistic graphics; computer-based arts
and crafts; and some possible side effects of advanced applications of
computers and graphics.
On the whole, interactive computer graphics appears likely to be one of the main forces that will bring computers directly into the lives of very large numbers of people during the next two or three decades. Truly user-oriented graphics of sufficient power to be useful to large numbers of people has not been widely affordable, but it will soon become so, and, when it does, the appropriateness and quality of the products offered will to a large extent determine the future of computers as intellectual aids and partners of people. | |||
| The human task as reference for system interface design | | BIBA | Full-Text | 97-100 | |
| Robert B. Miller | |||
| Effective design of the working interface between humans and computers cannot merely depend on catalogs of respective "characteristics" of each of these two entities, nor on optimizing individual "functions" in the interactions. The proper purpose of a man-machine interface is to benefit a person in performing a task or a collection of goal-related tasks. The entire task, including its goals, is therefore the proper reference for the design, not the attribute lists of humans and computers. An effective design results from trading off sets of variables, including economic and psychological cost factors, in order to optimize resources for achieving task goals. | |||
| On conversational interaction with computers | | BIBA | Full-Text | 101-113 | |
| R. S. Nickerson | |||
| Several properties of conversations are considered as they relate to person-computer interaction. Some of the ways in which existing computer systems support interactions that have some features in common with interperson conversations are noted. Exception is taken to the notion, however, that person-computer interactions should, ideally, resemble person-person conversations in all respects. | |||
| Session 2: implications of being "user-oriented" | | BIBA | Full-Text | 117-118 | |
| Siegfried Treu | |||
| Participants were sent the following in advance:
Interactive graphics systems have the potential for becoming "suitable partners" to people carrying out high order intellectual processes. This session will focus on unresolved issues that need to be considered about people and their milieu in relation to systems and their constraints. We should have an understanding of our goals and an awareness of their implications in designing interactive graphics systems. In this session we will attempt to gain insights into the relationships between designer goals/procedures and user needs/attitudes. The following question may be useful for each designer to ask: "What will be the impact of my design choice on the user in terms of "triggered", presumed, or desired state-of-being and what will be the impact on user costs in terms of time, money, emotion and psychological/physical energy?" | |||
| Session 3: graphical output and input capabilities | | BIBA | Full-Text | 119-120 | |
| James D. Foley | |||
| The following was sent to participants in advance:
A man-machine dialogue involves two closely-coupled languages, one for output to the man, the other for input to the machine. This session will focus on the lexical and syntactic units from which the languages might be formed. For the output language, the concern is with issues such as 3-D perception, the structure of display presentations, etc. For the input language, the concern is with the physical input devices and the logical ways in which they are used. The goal of our discussions will be to identify impacts on human information processing, to seek underlying principles relating to known design problems, and to identify important unstudied problems. | |||
| Session 4: conversational ergonomics | | BIBA | Full-Text | 121-122 | |
| Victor L. Wallace | |||
| The following paragraph was distributed to participants in advance:
We define "conversation" as a sequence of goal-directed interactions between man and machine. Ergonomics refers to the design of the working environment in which the "conversation" takes place. Ideally the design permits the man to focus on the intent and meaning of the (two-way) communication, thereby transcending the elemental output and input capabilities (Session 3). Unfortunately, the ideal is rarely achieved. This session will be concerned with the factors which promote the conversational quality of graphic interaction. We will seek to organize, exploit, and extend this knowledge for the benefit of designers -- and ultimately users -- of conversational graphic systems. | |||
| Session 5: user and system adaptability | | BIBA | Full-Text | 123-125 | |
| Elaine L. Thomas | |||
| The following paragraph was distributed to participants in advance:
Every user of an interactive graphics system is different in some way from every other user. Also, a particular person will use an interactive graphics system differently at different times, depending on a wide range of factors such as the particular job to be done, the level of user experience with the graphics system, the load on the system, the time of day, user mood, etc. Adaptation can have many different interpretations in an interactive graphics system. Some systems are user-extensible; some systems adjust automatically to some subset of user variations; and some systems have built-in functions to accommodate several predefined classes of users and levels of experience. This session will attempt to identify how the adaptability of an interactive graphics system can add to or detract from the usability of that system. | |||
| Session 6: design and evaluation methodology | | BIBA | Full-Text | 127-130 | |
| Siegfried Treu | |||
| Workshop participants were provided the following description of this
session:
The material to be covered in Sessions 2 through 5 will tend to be mainly "prescriptive" in nature, based on the collective experience and intuition of those in attendance as well as on isolated and largely imported (from other disciplines or specialities) bits of theory and empirical evidence. But to really address "user-oriented design" in its full from, bringing it down to a useful, operational level, we must be concerned with methodological questions which, if suitably answered, will provide welcome guidance and assistance to designers. This session is intended to construct a framework of approaches to graphic system design which will be intimately coupled with techniques for testing and evaluating the graphical interface/interaction with respect to the user-oriented characteristics suggested in previous sessions. We will therefore strive to determine whether those user-oriented goals indicated in Session 2 can be attained. | |||
| Session 7: future directions | | BIBA | Full-Text | 131-135 | |
| John L. Bennett | |||
| The following paragraphs were distributed to participants in advance of the
workshop to describe this session:
During the workshop we will have ranged over many topics related to "user-orientation". Some issues will have appeared and re-appeared in different discussions. This session will be our opportunity to tie together some recurring controversies as we from our perspective on where we are. We will not, however, attempt to recap the entire meeting. | |||