Cumincad : CUMINCAD Papers : Search Results

CumInCAD is a Cumulative Index about publications in Computer Aided Architectural Design
supported by the sibling associations ACADIA, CAADRIA, eCAADe, SIGraDi, ASCAAD and CAAD futures

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_id	bd19
authors	Harrison, Steve and Dourish, Paul
year	1996
title	Re-Place-ing Space: The Roles of Place and Space in Collaborative Systems Learning from Space and Place
source	Proceedings of ACM CSCW'96 Conferenc on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work 1996 p.10
summary	Many collaborative and communicative environments use notions of "space" and spatial organisation to facilitate and structure interaction. We argue that a focus on spatial models is misplaced. Drawing on understandings from architecture and urban design, as well as from our own research findings, we highlight the critical distinction between "space" and "place". While designers use spatial models to support interaction, we show how it is actually a notion of "place" which frames interactive behaviour. This leads us to re-evaluate spatial systems, and discuss how "place", rather than "space", can support CSCW design.
keywords	Space; Place; Media Space; Virtual Reality; MUDs; Metaphor
series	other
last changed	2002/07/07 16:01

_id	3451
authors	Harrison, Beverly L.
year	1996
title	The Design and Evaluation of Transparent User Interfaces. From Theory to Practice
source	University of Toronto, Toronto
summary	The central research issue addressed by this dissertation is how we can design systems where information on user interface tools is overlaid on the work product being developed with these tools. The interface tools typically appear in the display foreground while the data or work space being manipulated typically appear in the perceptual background. This represents a trade-off in focused foreground attention versus focused background attention. By better supporting human attention we hope to improve the fluency of work, where fluency is reflected in a more seamless integration between task goals, user interface tool manipulations to achieve these goals, and feedback from the data or work space being manipulated. This research specifically focuses on the design and evaluation of transparent user interface 'layers' applied to graphical user interfaces. By allowing users to see through windows, menus, and tool palettes appearing in the perceptual foreground, an improved awareness of the underlying workspace and preservation of context are possible. However, transparent overlapping objects introduce visual interference which may degrade task performance, through reduced legibility. This dissertation explores a new interface technique (i.e., transparent layering) and, more importantly, undertakes a deeper investigation into the underlying issues that have implications for the design and use of this new technique. We have conducted a series of experiments, progressively more representative of the complex stimuli from real task domains. This enables us to systematically evaluate a variety of transparent user interfaces, while remaining confident of the applicability of the results to actual task contexts. We also describe prototypes and a case study evaluation of a working system using transparency based on our design parameters and experimental findings. Our findings indicate that similarity in both image color and in image content affect the levels of visual interference. Solid imagery in either the user interface tools (e.g., icons) or in the work space content (e.g., video, rendered models) are highly interference resistant and work well up to 75% transparent (i.e., 25% of foreground image and 75% of background content). Text and wire frame images (or line drawings) perform equally poorly but are highly usable up to 50% transparent, with no apparent performance penalty. Introducing contrasting outlining techniques improves the usability of transparent text menu interfaces up to 90% transparency. These results suggest that transparency is a usable and promising interface alternative. We suggest several methods of overcoming today's technical challenges in order to integrate transparency into existing applications.
series	thesis:PhD
email
last changed	2003/02/12 22:37

_id	b81d
authors	Davies, C. and Harrison, J.
year	1996
title	Osmose: Towards Broadening the Aesthetics of Virtual Reality
source	ACM Computer Graphics: Virtual Reality Volume 30, Number 4
summary	Osmose is an immersive virtual environment, produced by Softimage in 1994/95. One of the primary goals of Osmose was to push the expressive capabilities of existing 3D tools, to demonstrate that an alternative aesthetic and interactive sensibility is possible for real-time, interactive, 3D computer graphics. Osmose was created under the direction of Char Davies, the Director of Visual Research at Softimage. A former painter, as well as a creator of 3D computer graphic stills, Davies has a particular artistic vision which has driven the project. Davies has been striving for years to represent space as a luminous enveloping medium. This has led her from painting to 3D computer graphics, and finally into creating immersive virtual spaces. One of Davies' intentions for Osmose was to create a space that is "psychically innovating," one in which, to quote Bachelard, participants do not change "place," but change their own nature. Osmose was therefore designed to explore the potential of immersive virtual space to allow participants to shed their habitual ways of looking at (and behaving in) the world. By doing this, we hoped they would then emerge from the virtual world to experience the real world in a fresh way, reawakening a fundamental sense of their own "being-in-the-world." We hoped that this could be accomplished through the visual, aural and interactive aesthetic of the work.
series	journal paper
last changed	2003/04/23 15:50

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