Previous research has shown that rotation and orientation of items plays three major roles during collaboration: comprehension, coordination and communication. Based on these roles of orientation and advice from kinesiology research, we have designed the Rotate’N Translate (RNT) interaction mechanism, which provides integrated control of rotation and translation using only a single touch-point for input. We present an empirical evaluation comparing RNT to a common rotation mechanism that separates control of rotation and translation. Results of this study indicate RNT is more efficient than the separate mechanism and better supports the comprehension, coordination and communication roles of orientation.

We investigate the differences- in terms of both quantitative performance and subjective preference- between direct-touch and mouse input for unimanual and bimanual tasks on tabletop displays. The results of two experiments show that for bimanual tasks performed on tabletops, users benefit from direct-touch input. However, our results also indicate that mouse input may be more appropriate for a single user working on tabletop tasks requiring only single-point interaction.

We have recently begun to see hardware support for the tabletop user interface, offering a number of new ways for humans to interact with computers. Tabletops offer great potential for face-to-face social interaction; advances in touch technology and computer graphics provide natural ways to directly manipulate virtual objects, which we can display on the tabletop surface. Such an interface has the potential to benefit a wide range of the population and it is important that we design for usability and learnability with diverse groups of people. This paper

Multi-user, touch-sensing input devices create opportunities for the use of cooperative gestures – multi-user gestural interactions for single display groupware. Cooperative gestures are interactions where the system interprets the gestures of more than one user as contributing to a single, combined command. Cooperative gestures can be used to enhance users ’ sense of teamwork, increase awareness of important system events, facilitate reachability and access control on large, shared displays, or add a unique touch to an entertainment-oriented activity. This paper discusses motivating scenarios for the use of cooperative gesturing and describes some initial experiences with CollabDraw, a system for collaborative art and photo manipulation. We identify design issues relevant to cooperative gesturing interfaces, and present a preliminary design framework. We conclude by identifying directions for future research on cooperative gesturing interaction techniques. Author Keywords Cooperative gestures, gestures, computer-supported

www.dgp.toronto.edu

Casual piling of paper-based media during traditional tabletop collaboration is an important practice that helps coordinate task and group interactions. Previous research has shown that the ability to move piles around on a table plays a critical role in accessing and sharing task resources. However, existing casual storage techniques for digital workspaces only provide access to stored items at the periphery of the workspace, potentially compromising collaborative interactions at a digital tabletop display. To address this issue, we introduce storage bins, a mobile storage mechanism that enables access to stored items anywhere in the workspace. We also present an exploratory user study involving the use of mobile and peripheral storage mechanisms on a large, hi-resolution collaborative tabletop display. Findings from this study demonstrate the utility of storage bins and further our understanding of the impact of mobile and peripheral storage mechanisms on collaboration at a tabletop display.

This paper presents a design case study of SIDES: Shared Interfaces to Develop Effective Social Skills. SIDES is a tool designed to help adolescents with Asperger’s Syndrome practice effective group work skills using a four-player cooperative computer game that runs on tabletop technology. We present the design process and evaluation of SIDES conducted over six months with a middle school social group therapy class. Our findings indicate that cooperative tabletop computer games are a motivating and supportive tool for facilitating effective group work among our target population and reveal several design lessons to inform the development of similar systems. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.3 [Information Interfaces and Presentation (e.g., HCI)]:

Tabletop displays provide exciting opportunities to support individual and collaborative activities such as planning, organizing, and storyboarding. It has been previously suggested that continuous flow of interface items can ease information access and exploration on a tabletop workspace, yet this concept has not been adequately studied. This paper presents an exploratory user study of Interface Currents, a reconfigurable and mobile tabletop interface component that offers a controllable flow for interface items placed on its surface. Our study shows that Interface Currents supported information access and sharing on a tabletop workspace. The study findings also demonstrate that mobility, flexibility, and general adjustability of Interface Currents are important factors in providing interface support for variations in task and group interactions.

Although text entry is a vital part of day-to-day computing familiar to most people, not much research has been done to enable text entry on large interactive tables. One might assume that a good approach would be to choose an existing technique known to be fast, ergonomic, and currently preferred by the general population, but there are many additional factors to consider in this specific domain. We consider a variety of existing text-entry methods and examine their viability for use on tabletop displays. We discuss these techniques not only in terms of their general characteristics, performance, and adoption, but introduce other evaluative criteria, including: environmental factors unique to large digital tables and the support for multi-user simultaneous interaction. Based on our analysis we illustrate by example how to choose appropriate text-entry methods for tabletop applications with differing requirements, whether by selection from existing methods, or through a combination of desirable elements from a variety of methods. Our criteria can also be used as heuristics during the iterative design of a completely new text-entry technique.

To design information visualization tools for collaborative use, we need to understand how teams engage with visualizations during their information analysis process. We report on an exploratory study of individuals, pairs, and triples engaged in information analysis tasks using paper-based visualizations. From our study results, we derive a framework that captures the analysis activities of co-located teams and individuals. Comparing this framework with existing models of the information analysis process suggests that information visualization tools may benefit from providing a flexible temporal flow of analysis actions.