A feature-based approach to continuous-gesture analysis

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1994.Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-98) and index.by Alan Daniel Wexelblat.M.S

Interaction history for digital objects

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts & Sciences, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-143) and index.Digital information has no history. When we interact with physical objects, we are able to read the traces left by past interactions with the object. These traces, sometimes called "wear," form a basis for the interaction history of the object. In the physical world, we make use of interaction history to help come up with solutions and guidance. This is not possible in the digital realm, because the traces are missing. This dissertation describes a theoretical framework for talking about interaction history. This framework is related to work in anthropology, ethnomethodology, architecture, and urban planning. The framework describes a space of possible history-rich digital systems and gives properties which can be used to analyze existing systems. The space consists of six properties: proxemic/distemic, active/passive, rate/form of change, degree of permeation, personal/social, and kind of information. We also present an implementation of these ideas in a system called Footprints, a toolset for aiding information foraging on the World Wide Web. Our tools assume that users know what they want but that they need help finding it and help understanding - putting in context - what they have found. Footprints is a social navigation system, designed to show that information from past users can help direct present problem-solvers. We present results from informal use of the tools over the last two years, and from formal surveys and experiments on a controlled task. These experiments showed that people could achieve the same or better results with significantly less effort by using our tools.by Alan Daniel Wexelblat.Ph.D

History-Based tools for Navigation

I present a research framework and some tools developed as part of an ongoing effort into defining and using interaction history as part of a user interface for social navigation, which is the process of using traces left by past users to help current users find and understand information

History-Rich Tools for Social Navigation

: I present a research framework and some tools developed as part of an ongoing effort into defining and using interaction history as part of a user interface for social navigation; that is, using traces left by past users to help current users find and understand information. Introduction Digital information lacks history. It lacks the texture and depth and richness that comes from being used by many hands over much time. Where the physical world is rich with cues and montages that we take advantage of constantly, our data remains sterile. When we open a word processing document or visit a web site it is as though we were the first and only people ever to handle this data. Contrast this with a borrowed book or a lived-in house; both are rich with the markers of previous use and these markers (the dog-eared pages, the padded arch of a low doorway) serve as pointers and help us make better use of the information and the space. I am investigating how interaction history can be used in d..

An Approach to Natural Gesture in Virtual Environments

This article presents research—an experiment and the resulting prototype—on a method for treating gestural input so that it can be used for multimodal applications, such as interacting with virtual environments. This method involves the capture and use of natural, empty-hand gestures that are made during conventional descriptive utterances. Users are allowed to gesture in a normal continuous manner, rather than being restricted to a small set of discrete gestural commands as in most other systems. The gestures are captured and analyzed into a higher-level description. This description can be used by an application-specific interpreter to understand the gestural input in its proper context. Having a gesture analyzer of this sort enables natural gesture input to any appropriate application