PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE Diversity in the Use of Electronic Mail: A Preliminary Inquiry

This paper describes a series of interviews that examine the ways that professional office workers use electronic mail to manage their daily work. The purpose is to generate hypotheses for future research. A number of implications for the design of flexible mail systems are discussed. Two principal claims are made. First, the use of electronic mail is strikingly diverse, although not infinitely so. Individuals vary both in objective measures of mail use and in preferred strategies for managing work electronically. Feelings of control are similarly diverse and are related to the size of the user's inbox, numbers of folders, and subscriptions to distribution lists. This diversity implies that one's own experiences with electronic mail are unlikely to provide sufficient understanding of other's uses of mail. Mail designers should thus seek flexible primitives that capture the important dimensions of use and provide flexibility for a wide range of users. The second claim is that electronic mail is more than just a communication system. Users archive messages for subject retrieval, prioritize messages to sequence work activities, and delegate tasks via mail. A taxonomy of work management is proposed in which mail is used for information management, time management, and task management activities. Directions for future research are suggested

Cracking the Cocoa Nut: User Interface Programming at Runtime

International audienceThis article introduces runtime toolkit overloading, a novel approach to help third-party developers modify the interaction and behavior of existing software applications without access to their underlying source code. We describe the abstractions provided by this approach as well as the mechanisms for implementing them in existing environments. We describe Scotty, a prototype implementation for Mac OS X Cocoa that enables developers to modify existing applications at runtime, and we demonstrate a collection of interaction and functional transformations on existing off-the-shelf applications. We show how Scotty helps a developer make sense of unfamiliar software, even without access to its source code. We further discuss what features of future environments would facilitate this kind of runtime software development

Stretchis: Fabricating Highly Stretchable User Interfaces

International audienceRecent advances in materials science research have enabled the production of highly stretchable sensors and displays. However, such technologies are not yet accessible to non-expert makers. We present a novel and inexpensive fabrication method for creating Stretchis, highly stretchable user interfaces that combine sensing capabilities and visual output. We use Polydimethylsiloxan (PDMS) as the base material for a Stretchi and show how to embed stretchable touch and proximity sensors and stretchable electroluminescent displays. Stretchis can be ultra-thin, flexible, and fully customizable, enabling non-expert makers to add interaction to elastic physical objects, shape-changing surfaces, fabrics, and the human body. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach with three application examples that include ubiquitous computing, wearables and on-skin interaction

Color Portraits: From Color Picking to Interacting with Color

International audienceAlthough ubiquitous, color pickers have remained largely unchanged for 25 years. Based on contextual interviews with artists and designers, we created the Color Portraits design space to characterize five key color manipulation activities: sampling and tweaking individual colors, manipulating color relationships, combining colors with other elements, revisiting previous color choices, and revealing a design process through color. We found similar color manipulation requirements with scientists and engineers. We designed novel color interaction tools inspired by the design space, and used them as probes to identify specific design requirements, including: interactive palettes for sampling colors and exploring relationships; color composites for blending and decomposing colors with other elements; interactive histories to enable reuse of previous color choices; and providing color as a way to reveal underlying processes. We argue that color tools should allow users to interact with colors, not just pick or sample them

Hydrascope: Creating Multi-Surface Meta-Applications Through View Synchronization and Input Multiplexing

International audienceAs computing environments that combine multiple displays and input devices become more common, the need for applications that take advantage of these capabilities becomes more pressing. However, few applications are designed to support such multi-surface environments. We investigate how to adapt existing applications without access to their source code. We introduce HydraScope, a framework for transforming existing web applications into meta-applications that execute and synchronize multiple copies of applications in parallel, with a multi-user input layer for interacting with it. We describe the Hydra-Scope architecture, validated with five meta-applications

SemanticCollage: Enriching Digital Mood Board Design with Semantic Labels

International audienceDesigners create inspirational mood boards to express their design ideas visually, through collages of images and text. They find appropriate images and reflect on them as they explore emergent design concepts. After presenting the results of a participatory design workshop and a survey of professional designers, we introduce SemanticCollage, a digital mood board tool that attaches semantic labels to images by applying a state- of-the-art semantic labeling algorithm. SemanticCollage helps designers to 1) translate vague, visual ideas into search terms; 2) make better sense of and communicate their designs; while 3) not disrupting their creative flow. A structured observation with 12 professional designers demonstrated how semantic labels help designers successfully guide image search and find relevant words that articulate their abstract, visual ideas. We conclude by discussing how SemanticCollage inspires new uses of semantic labels for supporting creative practice

Beyond Snapping: Persistent, Tweakable Alignment and Distribution with StickyLines

International audienceAligning and distributing graphical objects is a common, but cumbersome task. In a preliminary study (six graphic designers , six non-designers), we identified three key problems with current tools: lack of persistence, unpredictability of results, and inability to 'tweak' the layout. We created StickyLines, a tool that treats guidelines as first-class objects: Users can create precise, predictable and persistent interactive alignment and distribution relationships, and 'tweaked' positions can be maintained for subsequent interactions. We ran a [2x2] within-participant experiment to compare Sticky-Lines with standard commands, with two levels of layout difficulty. StickyLines performed 40% faster and required 49% fewer actions than traditional alignment and distribution commands for complex layouts. In study three, six professional designers quickly adopted StickyLines and identified novel uses, including creating complex compound guidelines and using them for both spatial and semantic grouping

RepliCHI - CHI should be replicating and validating results more: discuss

PanelInternational audienceThe replication of research findings is a cornerstone of good science. Replication confirms results, strengthens research, and makes sure progress is based on solid foundations. CHI, however, rewards novelty and is focused on new results. As a community, therefore, we do not value, facilitate, or reward replication in research, and often take the significant results of a single user study on 20 users to be true. This panel will address the issues surrounding replication in our community, and discuss: a) how much of our broad diverse discipline is 'science', b) how, if at all, we currently see replication of research in our community, c) whether we should place more emphasis on replication in some form, and d) how that should look in our community. The aim of the panel is to make a proposal to future CHI organizers (2 are on the panel) for how we should facilitate replication in the future

InContext:Futuring User-Experience Design Tools

Technology is changing, which means the design processes supporting it must also change. Digital tools for user experience and interaction design are vital in enabling designers to create appropriate, enjoyable and functional human-computer experiences, and so will necessarily evolve alongside our technological development. This workshop aims to support the futuring of user experience and user interfaces, and will engage with stakeholders, practicing designers, researchers, students and educators in order to understand better the needs for next-generation design tools. We will envisage new forms of design tools that encourage best practice, for example, linking representations, analysis tools, just-in-time evidence, physicality, experience, and crucially, put context at the centre of design

Deflationary tactics with the archive of life: contemporary Jewish art and popular culture

This paper discusses art works by Suzanne Treister, Deborah Kass and Doug Fishbone. It considers the importance of their work for contemporary Jewish identity within the terms of wider conceptual questions that preoccupy contemporary art. These concerns are challenging the perceived structures of power, the “performance” of subjectivity and the questioning of authenticity. A deflationary aesthetic is central to the critique of these structures of thinking fuelled by an interest in the relationship between Jewish subjectivity and popular culture that underpins all of these art works. I argue that popular culture plays a key role as a constituting factor in the production of contemporary Anglophone subjectivity. I use the case studies to develop the argument in the three artists’ specificities and the way they all question the idea of authenticity as a stable source of self-understanding. Suzanne Treister questions history and our relationship with historical events, specifically the Holocaust. She also explores questions of the relationship between structures of power and narratives of history. Debora Kass considers the representation of Jewish women, power and iconicity. Doug Fishbone, a younger artist, takes on self-hate as a transformative tool and as a motif that destabilizes Jewishness as a category, especially in an age of the accelerated post-internet-derived subjectivity