Almost as long as there have been user interfaces, there have been special software systems and tools to help design and implement the user interface software. Many of these tools have demonstrated significant productivity gains for programmers, and have become important commercial products. Others have proven less successful at supporting the kinds of user interfaces people want to build. This article discusses the different kinds of user interface software tools, and investigates why some approaches have worked and others have not. Many examples of commercial and research systems are included. Finally, current research directions and open issues in the field are discussed.

rom the beginning, hypermedia application design has been driven primarily by technological innovations and constrained by technical feasibility. For the last few years, however, usability methods and results from human factors research have been gaining more influence [17]. Despite this trend toward user-oriented development procedures, issues of cognition and human information processing still are widely neglected and barely influence hypermedia design.

Most windowing systems follow the independent overlapping windows approach, which emerged as an answer to the needs of the 1980s' technology. Due to advances in computers and display technology, and increased information needs, modern users demand more functionality from window management systems. We proposed Elastic Windows with improved spatial layout and rapid multi-window operations as an alternative to current window management strategies for efficient personal role management [12]. In this approach, multi-window operations are achieved by issuing operations on window groups hierarchically organized in a space-filling tiled layout. This paper describes the Elastic Windows interface briefly and then presents a study comparing user performance with Elastic Windows and traditional window management techniques for 2, 6, and 12 window situations. Elastic Windows users had statistically significantly faster performance for all 6 and 12 window situations, for task environment setup, task...

The Task Gallery is a window manager that uses interactive 3D graphics to provide direct support for task management and document comparison, lacking from many systems implementing the desktop metaphor. User tasks appear as artwork hung on the walls of a virtual art gallery, with the selected task on a stage. Multiple documents can be selected and displayed side-by-side using 3D space to provide uniform and intuitive scaling. The Task Gallery hosts any Windows application, using a novel redirection mechanism that routes input and output between the 3D environment and unmodified 2D Windows applications. User studies suggest that the Task Gallery helps with task management, is enjoyable to use, and that the 3D metaphor evokes spatial memory and cognition.

The continuing trend toward greater processing power, larger storage, and in particular increased display surface by using multiple monitor supports increased multi-tasking by the computer user. The concomitant increase in desktop complexity has the potential to push the overhead of window management to frustrating and counterproductive new levels. It is difficult to adequately design for multiple monitor systems without understanding how multiple monitor users differ from, or are similar to, single monitor users. Therefore, we deployed a tool to a group of single monitor and multiple monitor users to log window management activity. Analysis of the data collected from this tool revealed that usage of interaction components may change with an increase in number of monitors, and window visibility can be a useful measure of user display space management activity, especially for multiple monitor users. The results from this analysis begin to fill a gap in research about real-world window management practices.

Our studies have shown that as displays become larger, users leave more windows open for easy multitasking. A larger number of windows, however, may increase the time that users spend arranging and switching between tasks. We present Scalable Fabric, a task management system designed to address problems with the proliferation of open windows on the PC desktop. Scalable Fabric couples window management with a flexible visual representation to provide a focus-plus-context solution to desktop complexity. Users interact with windows in a central focus region of the display in a normal manner, but when a user moves a window into the periphery, it shrinks in size, getting smaller as it nears the edge of the display. The window "minimize" action is redefined to return the window to its preferred location in the periphery, allowing windows to remain visible when not in use. Windows in the periphery may be grouped together into named tasks, and task switching is accomplished with a single mouse click. The spatial arrangement of tasks leverages human spatial memory to make task switching easier. We review the evolution of Scalable Fabric over three design iterations, including discussion of results from two user studies that were performed to compare the experience with Scalable Fabric to that of the Microsoft Windows XP TaskBar.

Our studies have shown that as displays become larger, users leave more windows open for easy multitasking. A larger number of windows, however, may increase the time that users spend arranging and switching between tasks. We introduce GroupBar, a task management system for dealing with the profusion of windows on the PC desktop. Designed to offer the same basic form and function as the existing Microsoft Windows^TM TaskBar, GroupBar additionally allows users to group windows into higher-level tasks and enables task switching with a single mouse click. In order to gain experience with GroupBar usage and to develop reasonable task definitions we conducted a longitudinal field study. Based on the results of that field study, we conducted a comparative user study wherein we found that participants were able to multitask faster when using GroupBar than when using the existing Windows TaskBar.

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. Key words: display space management, window management, multiple monitors, interview 1

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Most windowing systems follow the independent overlapping windows approach, which emerged as an answer to the needs of the 80s' applications and technology. Advances in computers, display technology, and the applications demand more functionalityfrom windowmanagement systems. Based on these changes and the problems of current windowing approaches, we have updated the requirements for multiwindow systems to guide new methods of window management. We propose elastic windows with improved spatial layout and rapid multi-window operations. Multi-window operations are achieved by issuing operations on window groups hierarchically organized in a space-filling tiled layout. Sophisticated multi-window operations and spatial layout dynamics helps users to handle fast task-switching and to structure their work environment to their rapidly changing needs. We claim that these multi-window operations and the improved spatial layout decrease the cognitive load on users. Users found our prototype syst...