Revisiting display space management: understanding current practice to inform next-generation design

ABSTRACT

Most modern computer systems allow the user to control the space allocated to interfaces through a window system. While much of the understanding of how people interact with windows may be regarded as well-known, there are very few reports of documented window management practices. Recent work on larger display spaces indicates that multiple monitor use is becoming more commonplace, and that users are experiencing a variety of usability issues with their window systems. The lack of understanding of how people generally interact with windows implies that future design and evaluation of window managers may not address emerging user needs and display systems. Thus we present a study of people using a variety of window managers and display configurations to illustrate manager- and display-independent space management issues. We illustrate several issues with space management, and each issue includes discussion of the implications of both evaluations and design directions for future window managers. We also present a classification of users' space management styles and relationships to window system types.

REFERENCES

• 1: Badros, G. J. et. al. SCWM: an intelligent constraint-enabled window manager. In Proc. AAAI Symp. on Smart Graphics, 76--83, 2000.
• 2: Michel Beaudouin-Lafon, Novel interaction techniques for overlapping windows, Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, November 11-14, 2001, Orlando, Florida [doi>10.1145/502348.502371]
• 3: Blaine A. Bell , Steven K. Feiner, Dynamic space management for user interfaces, Proceedings of the 13th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, p.239-248, November 06-08, 2000, San Diego, California, United States [doi>10.1145/354401.354790]
• 4: S. A. Bly , J. K. Rosenberg, A comparison of tiled and overlapping windows, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.101-106, April 13-17, 1986, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
• 5: Card, S. K., Pavel, M., and Farrell, J. E. Window-based computer dialogues. In Proc. INTERACT, pages 239--243, 1984.
• 6: Czerwinski, M. et. al. Toward characterizing the productivity benefits of very large displays. In Proc. INTERACT, pages 9--16, 2003.
• 7: Douglas J. Funke , Jeannette G. Neal , Rajendra D. Paul, An approach to intelligent automated window management, International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, v.38 n.6, p.949-983, June 1993 [doi>10.1006/imms.1993.1044]
• 8: K. B. Gaylin, How are windows used? Some notes on creating an empirically-based windowing benchmark task, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.96-100, April 13-17, 1986, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
• 9: Jonathan Grudin, Partitioning digital worlds: focal and peripheral awareness in multiple monitor use, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.458-465, March 2001, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/365024.365312]
• 10: D. Austin Henderson, Jr. , Stuart Card, Rooms: the use of multiple virtual workspaces to reduce space contention in a window-based graphical user interface, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), v.5 n.3, p.211-243, July 1986 [doi>10.1145/24054.24056]
• 11: Dugald Ralph Hutchings , John Stasko, QuickSpace: new operations for the desktop metaphor, CHI '02 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, April 20-25, 2002, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA [doi>10.1145/506443.506605]
• 12: Dugald Ralph Hutchings , Greg Smith , Brian Meyers , Mary Czerwinski , George Robertson, Display space usage and window management operation comparisons between single monitor and multiple monitor users, Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces, May 25-28, 2004, Gallipoli, Italy [doi>10.1145/989863.989867]
• 13: Eser Kandogan , Ben Shneiderman, Elastic Windows: evaluation of multi-window operations, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.250-257, March 22-27, 1997, Atlanta, Georgia, United States [doi>10.1145/258549.258720]
• 14: Macintosh OS X Exposé hot key operations. http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther/expose.html
• 15: Brad A. Myers, A Taxonomy of Window Manager User Interfaces, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, v.8 n.5, p.65-84, September 1988 [doi>10.1109/38.7762]
• 16: Mynatt, E. D. The writing on the wall. In Proc. INTERACT, pages 196 -- 204, 1999.
• 17: Meredith Ringel, When one isn't enough: an analysis of virtual desktop usage strategies and their implications for design, CHI '03 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, April 05-10, 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA [doi>10.1145/765891.765976]
• 18: George Robertson , Maarten van Dantzich , Daniel Robbins , Mary Czerwinski , Ken Hinckley , Kirsten Risden , David Thiel , Vadim Gorokhovsky, The Task Gallery: a 3D window manager, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.494-501, April 01-06, 2000, The Hague, The Netherlands [doi>10.1145/332040.332482]

INDEX TERMS

Keywords:
display space management, interview, multiple monitors, window management