A marking menu is designed to allow a user to perform a menu selection by either popping-up a radial (or pie) menu, or by making a straight mark in the direction of the desired menu item without popping-up the menu. Previous evaluations in laboratory settings have shown the potential of marking menus. This paper reports on a case study of user behavior with marking menus in a real work situation. The study demonstrates the following: First, marking menus are used as designed. When users become expert with the menus, marks are used extensively. However, the transition to using marks is not one way. Expert users still switch back to menus to refresh their memory of menu layout. Second, marking is an extremely efficient interaction technique. Using a mark on average was 3.5 times faster than selection using the menu. Finally, design principles can be followed that make menu item/mark associations easier to learn, and interaction efficient.

In current interfaces, users select objects, apply operations, and change viewing parameters in distinct steps that require switching attention among several screen areas. Our See-Through Interface ™ software reduces steps by locating tools on a transparent sheet that can be moved over applications with one hand using a trackball, while the other hand controls a mouse cursor. The user clicks through a tool onto application objects, simultaneously selecting an operation and an operand. Tools may include graphical filters that display a customized view of application objects. Compared to traditional interactors, these tools save steps, require no permanent screen space, reduce temporal modes, apply to multiple applications, and facilitate customization. This paper presents a taxonomy of see-through tools that considers variations in each of the steps they perform. As examples, we describe particular see-through tools that perform graphical editing and text editing operations.

This research focuses on the use of hand drawn marks as a human-computer input technique. Drawing a mark is an efficient command input technique in many situations. However, marks are not intrinsically self-explanatory as are other interactive techniques such as buttons and menus. This research develops and evaluates an interaction technique called marking menus which integrates menus and marks such that both self-explanation and efficient interaction can be provided. A marking menu allows a user to perform a menu selection by either popping up a radial menu and then selecting an item, or by drawing a straight mark in the direction of the desired menu item. Drawing a mark avoids popping up the menu. Marking menus can also be hierarchic. In this case, hierarchic radial menus and “zig-zag ” marks are used. Marking menus are based on three design principles: self-revelation, guidance and rehearsal. Self-revelation means a marking menu reveals to a user what functions or items are available. Guidance means a marking menu guides a user in selecting an item. Rehearsal means that the guidance

We are exploring how virtual reahty theories can be applied toward palmtop computers. In our prototype, called the Chameleon, a small 4-inch hand-held monitor acts as a palmtop computer with the capabihties of a Silicon graphics workstation. A 6D input device and a response button are attached to tbe small monitor to detect user gestures and input selections for issuing commands. An experiment was conducted to evaluate our design and to see how well depth could be perceived in the small screen compared to a large 21-inch screen, and the extent to which movement of the small display (in a palmtop virtual reality condition) could improve depth perception, Results show that with very little training, perception of depth in the palmtop virtual reality condition is about as good as corresponding depth perception in a large (but static) display. Variations to the initial design are also discussed, along with issues to be explored in future research, Our research suggests that palmtop virtual reality may support effective navigation and search and retrieval, in rich and portable information spaces.

This paper describes some design refinements on marking menus and shows how these refinements embody interesting and relevant design principles for HCI. These refinements are based on the design principles of: (1) maintaining visual context, (2) hiding unnecessary information, and (3) supporting skill development by graphical feedback. The result is a new graphical representation and a more effective form of visual feedback and behavior for marking menus.

that I have read this dissertation and that in my opinion it is fully adequate,

We propose a technique, called FaST Sliders, for selecting and adjusting continuous values using a fast, transient interaction much like pop-up menus. FaST Sliders combine marking menus and graphical sliders in a design that allows operation with quick ballistic movements for selection and coarse adjustment. Furthermore, additional controls can be displayed within the same interaction, for fine adjustments or other functions. We describe the design of FaST Sliders and a user study comparing FaST Sliders to other transient techniques. The results of our user study indicate that FaST Sliders hold potential. We observed that users found FaST Slider easy to learn and made use of and preferred its affordances for ballistic movement and additional controls. A sample program demonstrating our technique can be downloaded at

We present a novel way for quickly and easily designing nonphotorealistic images based on elementary operations which are linked together to create a variety of visual effects. Rather than mimicking a visual effect that an artist has already produced, we instead mimick the process undergone for the artist to produce that image. Compared to traditional approaches, this opens the possibility to have the images created by users with no programming skills. We describe a modular system that makes these elementary operatios available to the user. A specially designed user interface allows for an easy and intuitive combination of these operations to create an image. Visual feedback is provided to the user at any time and for any stage in the process.

This paper addresses issues raised by locationindependence on a large display surface as exemplified by the Xerox Liveboard. We summarize related work both early and contemporary, enumerate some of the challenges raised by location-independent interfaces, discuss the problem of

Toolglass [Bier et al. 1993] demonstrated a two-handed command selection technique that combined command selection and direct manipulation. While empirical evaluations showed the speed advantage of ToolGlass, they did not show the relative importance of two possible factors in its improved performance: 1) the use of two hands and 2) the merging of command selection and direct manipulation. We conducted a study comparing the relative benefits of three command selection techniques that merge command selection and direct manipulation: one two-handed technique, Toolglass, and two one-handed techniques, control menus [Pook et al., 2000] and FlowMenu [Guimbretière and Winograd, 2000]. Participants performed sequences of operations that required both selecting a color and designating the endpoints of a line. Our results show that control menus and FlowMenu are significantly faster than Toolglass. Further analysis suggests that the merging of command selection and direct manipulation is the most important factor in the performance of all three techniques.