Re-framing the desktop interface around the activities of knowledge work

ABSTRACT

The venerable desktop metaphor is beginning to show signs of strain in supporting modern knowledge work. In this paper, we examine how the desktop metaphor can be re-framed, shifting the focus away from a low-level (and increasingly obsolete) focus on documents and applications to an interface based upon the creation of and interaction with manually declared, semantically meaningful activities. We begin by unpacking some of the foundational assumptions of desktop interface design, describe an activity-based model for organizing the desktop interface based on theories of cognition and observations of real-world practice, and identify a series of high-level system requirements for interfaces that use activity as their primary organizing principle. Based on these requirements, we present the novel interface design of the Giornata system, a prototype activity-based desktop interface, and share initial findings from a longitudinal deployment of the Giornata system in a real-world setting.

REFERENCES

• 1: Anand Agarawala , Ravin Balakrishnan, Keepin' it real: pushing the desktop metaphor with physics, piles and the pen, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems, April 22-27, 2006, Montréal, Québec, Canada [doi>10.1145/1124772.1124965]
• 2: Liam Bannon , Allen Cypher , Steven Greenspan , Melissa L. Monty, Evaluation and analysis of users' activity organization, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, p.54-57, December 12-15, 1983, Boston, Massachusetts, United States [doi>10.1145/800045.801580]
• 3: E. Bardram, Activity-based computing: support for mobility and collaboration in ubiquitous computing, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, v.9 n.5, p.312-322, September 2005 [doi>10.1007/s00779-004-0335-2]
• 4: Michel Beaudouin-Lafon , Henry Michael Lassen, The architecture and implementation of CPN2000, a post-WIMP graphical application, Proceedings of the 13th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, p.181-190, November 06-08, 2000, San Diego, California, United States [doi>10.1145/354401.354761]
• 5: Ofer Bergman , Ruth Beyth-Marom , Rafi Nachmias, The project fragmentation problem in personal information management, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems, April 22-27, 2006, Montréal, Québec, Canada [doi>10.1145/1124772.1124813]
• 6: J. J. Cadiz , Gina Venolia , Gavin Jancke , Anoop Gupta, Designing and deploying an information awareness interface, Proceedings of the 2002 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, November 16-20, 2002, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA [doi>10.1145/587078.587122]
• 7: Paul Dourish , W. Keith Edwards , Anthony LaMarca , John Lamping , Karin Petersen , Michael Salisbury , Douglas B. Terry , James Thornton, Extending document management systems with user-specific active properties, ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), v.18 n.2, p.140-170, April 2000 [doi>10.1145/348751.348758]
• 8: Anton N. Dragunov , Thomas G. Dietterich , Kevin Johnsrude , Matthew McLaughlin , Lida Li , Jonathan L. Herlocker, TaskTracer: a desktop environment to support multi-tasking knowledge workers, Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces, January 10-13, 2005, San Diego, California, USA [doi>10.1145/1040830.1040855]
• 9: Engeström, Y. Learning by Expanding: An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research. Orienta-Konsultit Oy, Helsinki, Finland, 1987.
• 10: Freeman, E. & Fertig, S. Lifestreams: Organizing your electronic life. In Proc. AAAI Fall Symposium (FS-95-03), AAAI Press (1995).
• 11: Victor M. González , Gloria Mark, "Constant, constant, multi-tasking craziness": managing multiple working spheres, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.113-120, April 24-29, 2004, Vienna, Austria [doi>10.1145/985692.985707]
• 12: 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]
• 13: William Jones , Predrag Klasnja , Andrea Civan , Michael L. Adcock, The personal project planner: planning to organize personal information, Proceeding of the twenty-sixth annual SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 05-10, 2008, Florence, Italy [doi>10.1145/1357054.1357162]
• 14: 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]
• 15: Victor Kaptelinin, UMEA: translating interaction histories into project contexts, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 05-10, 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA [doi>10.1145/642611.642673]
• 16: Alison Kidd, The marks are on the knowledge worker, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: celebrating interdependence, p.186-191, April 24-28, 1994, Boston, Massachusetts, United States [doi>10.1145/191666.191740]
• 17: Blair MacIntyre , Elizabeth D. Mynatt , Stephen Voida , Klaus M. Hansen , Joe Tullio , Gregory M. Corso, Support for multitasking and background awareness using interactive peripheral displays, Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, November 11-14, 2001, Orlando, Florida [doi>10.1145/502348.502355]
• 18: Thomas W. Malone, How do people organize their desks?: Implications for the design of office information systems, ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), v.1 n.1, p.99-112, Jan. 1983 [doi>10.1145/357423.357430]
• 19: Richard Mander , Gitta Salomon , Yin Yin Wong, A “pile” metaphor for supporting casual organization of information, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.627-634, May 03-07, 1992, Monterey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/142750.143055]
• 20: Michael J. Muller , Werner Geyer , Beth Brownholtz , Eric Wilcox , David R. Millen, One-hundred days in an activity-centric collaboration environment based on shared objects, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.375-382, April 24-29, 2004, Vienna, Austria [doi>10.1145/985692.985740]
• 21: Youngjoo Park , Richard Furuta, Keeping narratives of a desktop to enhance continuity of on-going tasks, Proceedings of the 8th ACM/IEEE-CS joint conference on Digital libraries, June 16-20, 2008, Pittsburgh PA, PA, USA [doi>10.1145/1378889.1378960]
• 22: Jun Rekimoto, Time-machine computing: a time-centric approach for the information environment, Proceedings of the 12th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, p.45-54, November 07-10, 1999, Asheville, North Carolina, United States [doi>10.1145/320719.322582]
• 23: 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]
• 24: George Robertson , Eric Horvitz , Mary Czerwinski , Patrick Baudisch , Dugald Ralph Hutchings , Brian Meyers , Daniel Robbins , Greg Smith, Scalable Fabric: flexible task management, Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces, May 25-28, 2004, Gallipoli, Italy [doi>10.1145/989863.989874]
• 25: Mark Roseman , Saul Greenberg, TeamRooms: network places for collaboration, Proceedings of the 1996 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, p.325-333, November 16-20, 1996, Boston, Massachusetts, United States [doi>10.1145/240080.240319]
• 26: Smith, G., Baudisch, P., Robertson, G., Czerwinski, M., Meyers, B., Robbins, D. and Andrews, D. GroupBar: The TaskBar evolved. In Proc. OZCHI 2003, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia (2003), 34--43.
• 27: Lucy A. Suchman, Plans and situated actions: the problem of human-machine communication, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 1987
• 28: John C. Tang , Clemens Drews , Mark Smith , Fei Wu , Alison Sue , Tessa Lau, Exploring patterns of social commonality among file directories at work, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 28-May 03, 2007, San Jose, California, USA [doi>10.1145/1240624.1240769]
• 29: Stephen Voida , W. Keith Edwards , Mark W. Newman , Rebecca E. Grinter , Nicolas Ducheneaut, Share and share alike: exploring the user interface affordances of file sharing, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems, April 22-27, 2006, Montréal, Québec, Canada [doi>10.1145/1124772.1124806]
• 30: Voida, S., Mynatt, E.D. and MacIntyre, B. Supporting activity in desktop and ubiquitous computing. In Kaptelinin, V. and Czerwinski, M. (eds.), Beyond the Desktop Metaphor: Designing Integrated Digital Work Environments. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2007.
• 31: Vygotsky, L.S. & Cole, M. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1978.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Graphical user interfaces (GUI)

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
activity-based computing, context-aware computing, desktop computing, giornata, knowledge work