Beyond the Desktop Metaphor Designing Integrated Digital Work Environments edited by Victor Kaptelinin and Mary Czerwinski Beyond the Desktop Metaphor Designing Integrated Digital Work Environments edited by Victor Kaptelinin and Mary Czerwinski The computer’s metaphorical desktop, with its onscreen windows and hierarchy of folders, is the only digital work environment most users and designers have ever known. Yet empirical studies show that the traditional desktop design does not provide sufficient support for today’s real-life tasks involving collabora- tion, multitasking, multiple roles, and diverse tech- nologies. In Beyond the Desktop Metaphor, leading researchers and developers consider design approaches for a post-desktop future. The contributors analyze the limitations of the desktop environment—including the built-in conflict between access and display, the difficulties in manag- ing several tasks simultaneously, and the need to coor- dinate the multiple technologies and information objects (laptops, PDAs, files, URLs, email) that most people use daily—and propose novel design solutions that work toward a more integrated digital work envi- ronment. They describe systems that facilitate access to information, including Lifestreams, Haystack, Task Factory, GroupBar, and Scalable Fabric, and they argue that the organization of work environments should reflect the social context of work. They consider the notion of activity as a conceptual tool for designing integrated systems, and point to the Kimura and activ- ity-based computing systems as examples. Beyond the Desktop Metaphor is the first system- atic overview of state-of-the-art research on integrated digital work environments. It provides a glimpse of what the next generation of information technologies for everyday use may look like—and it should inspire design solutions for users’ real-world needs. Victor Kaptelinin is Professor in the Department of Informatics at Umeå University, Sweden. He is the coauthor (with Bonnie A. Nardi) of Acting with Technology: Activity Theory and Interaction Design (MIT Press, 2006). Mary Czerwinski is a Principal Researcher and Manager in the Visualization and Interaction Research Group at Microsoft Research and adjunct faculty member in Psychology at the University of Washington. computer science/business Contributors H. Ross Baker, Jacob E. Bardram, Patrick Baudisch, Richard Boardman, Mary Czerwinski, Nicolas B. Duarte, Danyel Fisher, Eric Freeman, David Gelernter, Aydin Haririnia, Eric Horvitz, Victor Kaptelinin, David R. Karger, Dawn E. Klinesmith, Hannah Lee, Blair MacIntyre, Brian Meyers, Thomas P. Moran, Elizabeth D. Mynatt, Bonnie Nardi, Catherine Plaisant, Pamela Ravasio, Daniel Robbins, George Robertson, Ben Shneiderman, Greg Smith, Desney Tan, Vincent Tscherter, Leonid A. Velikovich, Stephen Voida, Alfred O. Wanga, Matthew J. Westhoff, Shumin Zhai The MIT Press Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 http://mitpress.mit.edu Beyond the Desktop Metaphor Kaptelinin and Czerwinski, editors 0-262-11304-X 978-0-262-11304-5 Beyond the Desktop Metaphor fm.indd ifm.indd i 12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM fm.indd iifm.indd ii 12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM edited by Victor Kaptelinin and Mary Czerwinski Beyond the Desktop Metaphor Designing Integrated Digital Work Environments The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England fm.indd iiifm.indd iii 12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM © 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or informa- tion storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email special_sales@mitpress.mit. edu or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142. This book was set in Sabon by Omegatype Typography, Inc., and was printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Beyond the desktop metaphor : designing integrated digital work environments / Victor Kaptelinin and Mary Czerwinski, editors. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-262-11304-5 (hc : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-262-11304-X (hc : alk. paper) 1. Human–computer interaction. 2. User interfaces (Computer systems). 3. Microcomputers. I. Kaptelinin, Victor. II. Czerwinski, Mary P., 1960–. QA76.9.H85B539 2007 004.16—dc22 2006046846 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 fm.indd ivfm.indd iv 12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM Acknowledgments vii 1. Introduction: The Desktop Metaphor and New Uses of Technology 1 Victor Kaptelinin and Mary Czerwinski I Designing Out of the Box 13 Introduction to Part I 15 2 Beyond Lifestreams: The Inevitable Demise of the Desktop Metaphor 19 Eric Freeman and David Gelernter 3 Haystack: Per-User Information Environments Based on Semistructured Data 49 David R. Karger 4 Explorations in Task Management on the Desktop 101 George Robertson, Greg Smith, Brian Meyers, Patrick Baudisch, Mary Czerwinski, Eric Horvitz, Daniel Robbins, and Desney Tan II. The Social Dimension of Personal Environments 139 Introduction to Part II 141 5 Personal Role Management: Overview and a Design Study of Email for University Students 143 Catherine Plaisant and Ben Shneiderman, with H. Ross Baker, Nicolas B. Duarte, Aydin Haririnia, Dawn E. Klinesmith, Hannah Lee, Leonid A. Velikovich, Alfred O. Wanga, and Matthew J. Westhoff Contents fm.indd vfm.indd v 12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM 6 Soylent and ContactMap: Tools for Constructing the Social Workscape 171 Danyel Fisher and Bonnie Nardi III. From Tasks to Activities 191 Introduction to Part III 193 7. Supporting Activity in Desktop and Ubiquitous Computing 195 Stephen Voida, Elizabeth D. Mynatt, and Blair MacIntyre 8. From Desktop Task Management to Ubiquitous Activity-Based Computing 223 Jakob E. Bardram IV. Reflections on the Desktop Metaphor and Integration 261 Introduction to Part IV 263 9. Users’ Theories of the Desktop Metaphor, or Why We Should Seek Metaphor-Free Interfaces 265 Pamela Ravasio and Vincent Tscherter 10. Toward Integrated Work Environments: Application-Centric versus Workspace-Level Design 295 Victor Kaptelinin and Richard Boardman Conclusion 333 11. Beyond the Desktop Metaphor in Seven Dimensions 335 Thomas P. Moran and Shumin Zhai Contributors 355 Index 357 vi Contents fm.indd vifm.indd vi 12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM This book is the result of a collective effort made by researchers who share an interest in “post-desktop” interactive environments. The editors would like to thank all the chapter authors for their dedication, time, and generous intellectual contribution. The MIT Press supported our vision of the book and helped us bring it to fruition. We would also like to thank Chip Bruce, Jonathan Grudin, Kristo Ivanov, and Eric Stolterman for their help, support, and insightful discussions. Our thanks also go to our employers—Umeå University and Microsoft Research—for sup- portive environments that provided us with the freedom to work on this book. Many other people and institutions—too many to be listed on this page—contributed to this book in one way or another. The editors are thankful to all of them. Acknowledgments fm.indd viifm.indd vii 12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM fm.indd viiifm.indd viii 12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM12/4/2006 1:20:47 PM 1 The objective of this book is to present and discuss new approaches to designing next-generation digital work environments. Currently the most pervasive computer systems, such as Microsoft Windows and Mac OS, are based on the desktop metaphor. For many users and designers, these are the only digital work environments they have ever known. It is all too easy to assume that the desktop metaphor will always determine our expe- rience of computer systems. The present book challenges this assumption. Its point of departure is an understanding that desktop systems as we know them may well represent a temporary—if hugely successful—phase in the development of interactive environments. Future systems may fur- ther develop, modify, or even abandon the metaphor. The book is an attempt to systematically explore a range of issues related to the design of inter active environments of the future, with a special focus on new design solutions, concepts, and approaches that could be employed in “post- desktop” systems. Systems based on the desktop metaphor emerged on a massive scale as the first general-purpose work environments “for all” in the early 1980s (Smith et al. 1982). The designers’ intentions were to support the indi- vidual user of a stand-alone computer—typically in the context of a tradi- tional office environment—mostly in launching applications and storing and retrieving documents. Desktop systems provided coherent, no-non- sense environments for these types of activities and proved to be an enor- mous success. Today, however, the life of a typical computer user is very different. To carry out their everyday tasks, people often use a range of technologies, such as desktop and laptop computers, PDAs (personal digital assistants), and smartphones, and employ various types of information objects, such Introduction: The Desktop Metaphor and New Uses of Technology Victor Kaptelinin and Mary Czerwinski ch01.indd 1ch01.indd 1 12/4/2006 1:19:57 PM12/4/2006 1:19:57 PM [...]... again, the desktop metaphor breaks down here, as each device has its own look and feel, but must somehow synchronize with the alternate environments To sum up, the development of desktop systems over the last two decades has revealed limitations of the desktop metaphor In particular, the metaphor does not provide adequate support for the access to information objects along with the display of the content... current studies of integrated digital work environments has not only conceptual but also practical implications for the design of these environments The Themes and Structure of This Book The intention of this book is to discern the analysis and design of integrated digital work environments as a distinct area of HCI research and to support the consolidation of this emerging field The book provides a ch01.indd... overview of the state-of -the- art of the most relevant research and makes an attempt to facilitate the coordination of this research Individual chapters of the book are related to each other in several ways Perhaps the most apparent common feature of all contributions is that each of them addresses problems with the desktop metaphor The section above entitled The Trouble with the Desktop Metaphor concludes... ammunition for general reflections on the fate of the desktop metaphor and integration in digital work environments Accordingly, the book is organized into three parts The five chapters that make up parts I and II describe systems that illustrate novel approaches to designing digital work environments The chapters suggest a range of organizing principles, according to which work environments can be organized:... other parts can be accessed, is a collection of storage devices available to the user (for instance, what is displayed in the “My Computer” folder of Microsoft Windows) The desktop, from this perspective, is just a folder on one of these devices However, from the subjective perspective of the user, the entry point to the system is the desktop Usually, other components of the environment, including the. .. of the design space of new-generation digital work environments The chapters making up the book report on the latest research results from the contributors, including technological advancements, empirical evaluations, and innovative applications of their approaches The authors elaborate on the rationale behind their systems, the strengths and limitations of their approaches, users’ experiences with the. .. systems, how the systems address problems with existing digital environments, how they compare to other novel approaches, and how the underlying ideas can be used to benefit information workers in the design of future digital work environments Taken as a whole, the book provides a glimpse into how the everyday use of information technologies to support information workers may look in the not-so-distant... between individual research efforts Each of the novel systems and approaches challenging or extending the desktop metaphor also contributes to the exploration of a common set of more general research issues In this book we tentatively define these issues as involving the “design of integrated digital work environments. ” By integrated environments we mean environments based on a coherent set of underlying... (Christensen and Bardram 2002) Currently, these approaches are fairly loosely related to each other Even though there are more and more cross-references between them, each of these approaches predominantly positions itself relative to the desktop metaphor rather than to other alternatives to the desktop However, recent developments indicate that there are both theoretical and practical reasons for increased... multiple (virtual) desktops have not become widely popular with users Therefore, even within a narrowly defined scope of application —individual users working with files on stand-alone computers the desktop metaphor manifests apparent limitations Problems with the desktop metaphor were further aggravated by the use of email and the Internet as tools for communication and information sharing These developments . Beyond the Desktop Metaphor Designing Integrated Digital Work Environments edited by Victor Kaptelinin and Mary Czerwinski Beyond the Desktop Metaphor Designing Integrated Digital Work Environments edited. 1:20:47 PM edited by Victor Kaptelinin and Mary Czerwinski Beyond the Desktop Metaphor Designing Integrated Digital Work Environments The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England fm.indd. Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 http://mitpress .mit. edu Beyond the Desktop Metaphor Kaptelinin and Czerwinski, editors 0-262-11304-X 978-0-262-11304-5 Beyond the Desktop Metaphor fm.indd ifm.indd i 12/4/2006