In general, the study revealed that Interface Currents support co-located collaborative work around tabletop displays for tasks that involve large amounts of visual informa- tion that needs to be shared between users. Currents support providing a method for overviewing information, browsing through information, and collecting, structuring and
organizing information (see Question Q3, Section 3.2). The flow, in particular on the
7.3 Conclusion: Interface Currents and Collaboration way. Although the continuous movement of items was sometimes found distracting par- ticipants were able to solve this problem by stopping the flow on the Current. All groups
seemed to enjoy working with Interface Currents (see Question Q5, Section 3.2). De-
spite of some usability issues discussed in Chapter 6, they adopted the concept of Inter-
face Currents and its interaction techniques very well (see QuestionQ3, Section 3.2).
The study has shown that the concept of Interface Currents supports the application of people’s collaborative work habits as practiced on traditional tables to digital tables. For instance, they support territoriality and smooth transitions between parallel and collaborative work.
For these reasons, the question if Interface Currents support co-located collaborative
work around tabletop displays (see QuestionQ1, Section 3.2) can be answered positively.
However, as mentioned in the previous section, it has to be considered that the study explored the concept of Interface Currents only for a certain kind of task. This kind of task is characterized by involving creativity and mostly visual information items. The type of task was designed to be open ended to give groups a lot of liberty in solving it. In the real world, such tasks can be found in advertising agencies that produce magazine layouts or posters. However, future studies should be conducted to explore further fields where Interface Currents could be helpful (see Section 8.2).
In addition, the question of how people would set up a workspace based on Currents (see
QuestionQ4, Section 3.2) has to be explored further and cannot be answered clearly at
this time. As mentioned above, it has to be assumed that the realization of the concept of Interface Folders strongly biased the results of the second study task. It is very likely that the workspace designs would have turned out differently if participants would have been able to mix the content of Interface Folders. However, it can be assumed that participants would have used at least one peripheral Current since every group perceived this type of Current as very supporting and applied it in the workspace design.
Several questions were raised by the study that will have to be explored in future studies. The following chapter will conclude this thesis and give an outlook of future research.
CHAPTER 8
Conclusion
Developing interfaces that support co-located collaborative work on tabletop displays is still a challenge. People tend to interact very intuitively with such large displays because of their extensive experiences with collaborating on traditional tables. However, inter- faces for tabletop displays have to compensate problems that are caused by their angle and size and, furthermore, they have to provide intuitive and lightweight interaction techniques to support phases of collaborative and independent work.
The concept of Interface Currents as proposed by HINRICHS et al. [HCS05a] has the po-
tential to fulfill these criteria. However, its potential benefits had never been evaluated in a user study before. Within the scope of this thesis an exploratory user study was conducted to explore whether Interface Currents support co-located collaborative work around tabletop displays. This chapter summarizes contributions of the thesis. In addi- tion, possible directions of future work are discussed with regard to the realization of the system, design ideas, and further user studies.
8.1 Summary of Contributions
This thesis describes the background, the realization, and the findings of an exploratory user study that was conducted to explore the influence of Interface Currents on co- located collaborative work around tabletop displays. Based on this study, for the first time, information can be gained about:
• how Interface Currents support collaborative work around a tabletop display, • how people interact with Interface Currents in general,
• for what purposes Interface Currents are used,
Chapter 8 Conclusion
• how people perceive the interaction with Interface Currents
Furthermore, the current realization of Interface Currents was explored with regard to usability issues.
The contributions of this thesis also include improvements on the realization and the concept of Interface Currents that were applied during the study design process and according to the study’s usability findings.
Developing an Interactive Workspace Based on Interface Currents and Enhancing the Realization of Interface Currents
For the study, the realization of Interface Currents according to HINRICHSet al. [HCS05a]
extended an interactive workspace developed by HABELSKI [Hab04]. Several new fea-
tures were included: Three velocity settings were implemented for the flow on Interface Currents. Furthermore, a peripheral Current as a new type of Interface Current and a new type of stream-shaped Current were developed. A new interaction technique for relocating the Current was implemented and the spectrum of functions for manipulating the Current was enhanced by a resizing function.
Extending the Concept of Interface Currents to Interface Folders
In addition to the improvements of the realization of Interface Currents, the concept of Interface Currents was extended to Interface Folders enabling users to bring information stored and organized in folders directly onto an Interface Current in order to share them with other people. A “double-click” on an Interface Folder causes its content to automat- ically move over a connection bridge onto the closest Interface Current. In that way, the content of a Folder can be spread out on a Current and becomes visible to everybody working on the tabletop display.
Identifying Usability Issues of the Realization of Interface Currents
The analysis of the observed interactions with Interface Currents and Interface Folders revealed that both realizations had several usability issues. With regard to Interface Currents, the most issues were found concerning the control of the flow on a Current and the interaction with the control point menu. In addition, the overlapping of information items on a Current was perceived as distracting.
With regard to Interface Folders, participants perceived the connection bridge between Interface Folders and Currents as frustrating because it required them to wait for items to come out of the Folder.
Improving the Realization of Interface Currents and Interface Folders
Considering found usability issues, a redesign of Interface Currents and Interface Fold- ers was conducted. This redesign involved the establishment of control points on both
8.2 Future Work