Beyond the Desktop Metaphor: Designing Integrated Digital Work Environments (Hardcover)

Description

The computer's metaphorical desktop, with its onscreen windows and hierarchy of folders, is the only digital work environment most users and designers have ever known. Yet empirical studies show that the traditional desktop design does not provide sufficient support for today's real-life tasks involving collaboration, multitasking, multiple roles, and diverse technologies. In Beyond the Desktop Metaphor, leading researchers and developers consider design approaches for a post-desktop future.

The contributors analyze the limitations of the desktop environment--including the built-in conflict between access and display, the difficulties in managing several tasks simultaneously, and the need to coordinate the multiple technologies and information objects (laptops, PDAs, files, URLs, email) that most people use daily--and propose novel design solutions that work toward a more integrated digital work environment. They describe systems that facilitate access to information, including Lifestreams, Haystack, Task Gallery, GroupBar, and Scalable Fabric, and they argue that the organization of work environments should reflect the social context of work. They consider the notion of activity as a conceptual tool for designing integrated systems, and point to the Kimura and Activity-Based Computing systems as examples.

Beyond the Desktop Metaphor is the first systematic overview of state-of-the-art research on integrated digital work environments. It provides a glimpse of what the next generation of information technologies for everyday use may look like--and it should inspire design solutions for users' real-world needs.

Victor Kaptelinin is Professor in the Department of Informatics at Umeå University, Sweden.

Mary Czerwinski is a Principal Researcher and Manager in the Visualization and Interaction Research Group at Microsoft Research and adjunct faculty member in Psychology at the University of Washington.

 

Table of Contents

 Acknowledgments vii
 
1 Introduction: The Desktop Metaphor and New Uses of Technology
Victor Kaptelinin and Mary Czerwinski 1
 
I Designing Out of the Box 13
 
 Introduction to Part I 15
 
2 Beyond Lifestreams
The Inevitable Demise of the Desktop Metaphor
Eric Freeman and David Gelernter 19
 
3 Haystack
Per-User Information Environments Based on Semistructured Data
David R. Karger 49
 
4 Explorations in Task Management on the Desktop
George Robertson, Greg Smith, Brian Meyers, Patrick Baudisch, Mary Czerwinski, Eric Horvitz, Daniel Robbins and Desney Tan 101
 
II The Social Dimension of Personal Environments 139
 
 Introduction to Part II 141
 
5 Personal Role Management
Overview and a Design Study of Email for University Students
Catherine Plaisant and Ben Shneiderman; Assisted by H. Ross Baker, Nicolas B. Duarte, Aydin Haririnia, Dawn E. Klinesmith, Leonid A. Velikovich, Alfred O. Wanga and Matthew J. Westhoff 143
 
6 Soylent and ContactMap
Tools for Constructing the Social Workscape
Danyel Fisher and Bonnie A. Nardi 171
 
III From Tasks to Activities 191
 
 Introduction to Part III 193
 
7 Supporting Activity in Desktop and Ubiquitous Computing
Stephen Voida, Elizabeth Mynatt and Blair MacIntyre 195
 
8 From Desktop Task Management to Ubiquitous Activity-Based to Computing
Jakob E. Bardram 223
 
IV Reflections on the Desktop Metaphor and Integration 261
 
 Introduction to Part IV 263
 
9 Users’ Theories of the Desktop Metaphor, or Why We Should Seek Metaphor-Free Interfaces
Vincent Tscherter and Pamela Ravasio 265
 
10 Toward Integrated Work Environments
Application-Centric versus Workspace-Level Design
Victor Kaptelinin and Richard Boardman 295
 
 Conclusion 333
 
11 Beyond the Desktop Metaphor in Seven Dimensions
Thomas P. Moran and Shumin Zhai 335
 
 Contributors  355
 
 Index 357