Summary: The pile is a new element of the desktop user interface metaphor, designed to support the casual organization of documents. An interface design based on the pile concept suggested uses of content awareness for describing, organizing, and filing textual documents. We describe a prototype implementation of these capabilities, and give a detailed example of how they might appear to the user. We believe the system demonstrates how content awareness can be not only used in a computer filing system, but made an integral part of the user's experience.

Keywords: Intelligent agent, Instructible system, Programming by demonstration, Wizard of Oz, Prototyping

Summary: Turvy is a simulated prototype of an instructible agent. The user teaches it by demonstrating actions and pointing at or talking about relevant data. We formalized our assumptions about what could be implemented, then used the Wizard of Oz to flesh out a design and observe users' reactions as they taught several editing tasks. We found: a) all users invent a similar set of commands to teach the agent; b) users learn the agent's language by copying its speech; c) users teach simple tasks with ease and complex ones with reasonable effort; and d) agents cannot expect users to point to or identify critical features without prompting.
    In conducting this rather complex simulation, we learned some lessons about using the Wizard of Oz to prototype intelligent agents: a) design of the simulation benefits greatly from prior implementation experience; b) the agent's behavior and dialog capabilities must be based on formal models; c) studies of verbal discourse lead directly to an implementable system; d) the designer benefits greatly by becoming the Wizard; and e) qualitative data is more valuable for answering global concerns, while quantitative data validates accounts and answers fine-grained questions.

Summary: As the use of and the demand for electronic products becomes more diverse, it has become ever more essential to actively involve end-users in the design of the human interface of these products through a process of user studies, iterative design, and user testing [1] [2]. Our work has shown that an important component of human interface design is to conceptualize user scenarios based on observational studies of end-users [3]. These scenarios should be articulated very early on in the design process. From these scenarios, role plays can be developed and carried out with users to gain an initial understanding about what kind of functionality and product form factors might be appropriate for enhancing such aspects of users' lives as entertainment/ recreational factors, work-related productivity, interpersonal communications, human memory enhancement, knowledge acquisition/retention, etc.

Keywords: Audio interfaces, Audio browsing, Multi-media, User interface, User observation, Design process

Summary: Audio data is rarely used on desktop computers today, although audio is otherwise widely used for communication tasks. This paper describes early work aimed at creating computer tools that support the ways users may want to work with audio data. User needs for the system were determined by interviewing people already working with audio data, using existing devices such as portable tape recorders. A preliminary prototype system -- consisting of a personal tape recorder for recording and simultaneously marking audio and a Macintosh application for browsing these recordings -- was built. Informal field user tests of this prototype system have indicated areas for improvement and directions for future work.

Keywords: Interface design, Design process, Interactive systems, User observation, Desktop metaphor, Interface metaphors, Pile metaphor, Information visualization, Information organization, End-user programming

Summary: A user study was conducted to investigate how people deal with the flow of information in their workspaces. Subjects reported that, in an attempt to quickly and informally manage their information, they created piles of documents. Piles were seen as complementary to the folder filing system. which was used for more formal archiving. A new desktop interface element -- the pile -- was developed and prototyped through an iterative process. The design includes direct manipulation techniques and support for browsing, and goes beyond physical world functionality by providing system assistance for automatic pile construction and reorganization. Preliminary user tests indicate the design is promising and raise issues that will be addressed in future work.

Keywords: Icons, Interaction techniques, Dialogue methods, Interactive design, Empirical studies, HyperCard

Summary: Icons are used increasingly in interfaces because they are compact "universal" pictographic representations of computer functionality and processing. Animated icons can bring to life symbols representing complete applications or functions within an application, thereby clarifying their meaning, demonstrating their capabilities, and even explaining their method of use. To test this hypothesis, we carried out an iterative design of a set of animated painting icons that appear in the HyperCard tool palette. The design discipline restricted the animations to 10 to 20 second sequences of 22x20 pixel bit maps. User testing was carried out on two interfaces - one with the static icons, one with the animated icons. The results showed significant benefit from the animations in clarifying the purpose and functionality of the icons.