Current interactive user interface construction tools are often more of a hindrance than a benefit during the early stages of user interface design. These tools take too much time to use and force designers to specify more of the design details than they wish at this early stage. Most interface designers, especially those who have a background in graphic design, prefer to sketch early interface ideas on paper or on a whiteboard. We are developing an interactive tool called SILK that allows designers to quickly sketch an interface using an electronic pad and stylus. SILK preserves the important properties of pencil and paper: a rough drawing can be produced very quickly and the medium is very flexible. However, unlike a paper sketch, this electronic sketch is interactive and can easily be modified. In addition, our system allows designers to examine, annotate, and edit a complete history of the design. When the designer is satisfied with this early prototype, SILK can transform the sket...

Speech-based user interfaces are growing in popularity. Unfortunately, the technology expertise required to build speech UIs precludes many individuals from participating in the speech interface design process. Furthermore, the time and knowledge costs of building even simple speech systems make it difficult for designers to iteratively design speech UIs. SUEDE, the speech interface prototyping tool we describe in this paper, allows designers to rapidly create prompt/response speech interfaces. It offers an electronically supported Wizard of Oz (WOz) technique that captures test data, allowing designers to analyze the interface after testing. This informal tool enables speech user interface designers, even non-experts, to quickly create, test, and analyze speech user interface prototypes.

Current user interface construction tools make it difficult for a user interface designer to illustrate the behavior of an interface. These tools focus on specifying widgets and manipulating details such as colors. They can show what the interface will look like, but make it hard to show what it will do. For these reasons, designers prefer to sketch early interface ideas on paper. We have developed a tool called SILK that allows designers to quickly sketch an interface electronically. Unlike paper sketches, this electronic sketch is interactive. The designer can illustrate behaviors by sketching storyboards, which specify how the screen should change in response to user actions. Keywords Gestures, design, sketching, interaction techniques, SILK. INTRODUCTION When designers first start thinking about a visual interface, they often sketch rough pictures of the screen layouts. These screens are often tied together by storyboarding techniques: the designer annotates the sketches to ill...

Programming-by-demonstration (PBD) can be used to create tools and methods that eliminate the need to learn difficult computer languages. Gamut is a PBD tool that nonprogrammers can use to create a broader range of interactive software, including games, simulations, and educational software, than they can with other PBD tools. To do this, Gamut provides advanced interaction techniques that make it easier for a developer to express all aspects of an application. These techniques include a simplified way to demonstrate new examples, called “nudges, ” and a way to highlight objects to show they are important. Also, Gamut includes new objects and metaphors like the deck-of-cards metaphor for demonstrating collections of objects and randomness, guide objects for demonstrating relationships that the system would find too difficult to guess, and temporal ghosts which simplify showing relationships with the recent past. These techniques were tested in a formal setting with nonprogrammers to evaluate their effectiveness.

Toolkits and other tools have dramatically reduced the time and technical expertise needed to design and implement graphical user interfaces (GUIs) allowing high-quality, iterative, user-centered design to become a common practice. Unfortunately the generation of functioning prototypes for physical interactive devices as not had similar support – it still requires substantial time and effort by individuals with highly specialized skills and tools. This creates a divide between a designers ’ ability to explore form and interactivity of product designs and the ability to iterate on the basis of high fidelity interactive experiences with a functioning prototype. To help overcome this difficulty we have developed the Calder hardware toolkit. Calder is a development environment for rapidly exploring and prototyping functional physical interactive devices. Calder provides a set of reusable small input and output components, and integration into existing interface prototyping environments. These components communicate with a computer using wired and wireless connections. Calder is a tool targeted toward product and interaction designers to aid them in their early design process. In this paper we describe the process of gaining an understanding of the needs and workflow habits of our target users to generate a collection of requirements for such a toolkit. We describe technical challenges imposed by these needs, and the specifics of design and implementation of the toolkit to meet these challenges. ACM Classification: H5.2. Information interfaces and

Everyday appliances, including telephones, ovens, and home stereos, increasingly contain embedded computers to provide greater functionality. Unfortunately, as these appliances become more complex, their interfaces are becoming harder to use. At the same time, more people than ever are carrying computerized devices that can communicate, such as cellular telephones, personal digital assistants, and even some watches. Our vision is that these devices will be able to communicate with our everyday appliances using a short-range wireless network, enabling people to control their appliances from a single handheld device. We present two studies that suggest that handheld devices could be used effectively as remote controls for everyday appliances. Keywords: Handheld computers, remote control, appliances, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), Palm, PocketPC, Pebbles

Current interactive user interface construction tools are often more of a hindrance than a benefit during the early stages of interface design. These tools take too much time to use and force designers to specify more of the design details than they wish at this stage. Most designers prefer to sketch early interface ideas on paper. I have developed an interactive tool called SILK that allows designers to quickly sketch an interface using an electronic pad and stylus. SILK preserves the important properties of pencil and paper: a rough drawing can be produced very quickly and the medium is very flexible. However, unlike a paper sketch, this electronic sketch is interactive. The designer can illustrate behaviors by sketching storyboards, which specify how the screen should change in response to end-user actions. In addition, it can be semi-automatically transformed into a complete, operational interface in a specified look-and-feel. Keywords Design, sketching, prototyping, gestures, S...

We studied the effects of varying the fidelity and automation levels of a Ubicomp application prototype. Our results show that the interactive prototype captured the same usability issues that the paper prototype studies did and more. We found that paper prototyping is insufficient for supporting unique Ubicomp requirements, such as scalability, but a prototype with higher fidelity and automation levels can enhance the quality of interaction data available for evaluation.

Interface designs are currently tested in a mixture of fidelities and media. So far, there is insufficient research to indicate what level of fidelity and media will produce the best feedback from users. This experiment compared user testing with low- and high-fidelity prototypes in both computer and paper media. Task-based user tests of sketched (low-fidelity) and HTML (high-fidelity) website prototypes were conducted in each medium, separating the testing medium from other factors of prototype fidelity. We found that low- and high-fidelity prototypes are equally good at uncovering usability issues. Usability testing results were also found to be independent of medium, despite differences in interaction style. Designers should choose whichever medium and level of fidelity suit their practical needs and design goals, as discussed in this paper.

We reflect upon the process of developing a tangible space for children’s collaborative construction of screenbased systems. As in all design work, the design process involved continual refinements of initial ideas and their practical realisation. We discuss how some widely held qualities often put forward with tangible interfaces were given up in favour of reaching overall goals of interaction. In particular our design involved a shift from a focus on persistent representation and readability of tangible code structures, to instead focus on achieving reusability of programming resources. On a general level, our results illustrate a view on tangibles as resources for action instead of only as alternative forms of data representation. Importantly, this view includes action directed towards the computer as well as off-line socially oriented action conducted with the tangible artefacts. Author Keywords Tangible programming, TUI, embodied interaction