WIMP Interfaces for Emerging Display Environments

263 Pages·2011·4.11 MB·English

by  Manuela Waldner

Graz University of Technology
Institute for Computer Graphics and Vision
Dissertation
WIMP Interfaces for Emerging Display
Environments
Manuela Waldner
Graz, Austria, June 2011
Thesis supervisor
Prof. Dr. Dieter Schmalstieg
Referee
Prof. Dr. Andreas Butz

To Martin

Abstract
With the availability of affordable large-scale monitors and powerful projector hardware,
an increasing variety of display configurations can be found in our everyday environments,
such as office spaces and meeting rooms. These emerging display environments combine
conventional monitors and projected displays of different size, resolution, and orientation
into a common interaction space. However, the commonly used WIMP (windows, icons,
menus, and pointers) user interface metaphor is still based on a single pointer operating
multiple overlapping windows on a single, rectangular screen. This simple concept cannot
easily capture the complexity of heterogeneous display settings. As a result, the user
cannotfacilitatethefullpotentialofemergingdisplayenvironmentsusingtheseinterfaces.
The focus of this thesis is to push the boundaries of conventional WIMP interfaces
to enhance information management in emerging display environments. Existing and
functional interfaces are extended to incorporate knowledge from two layers: the physical
environmentandthecontentoftheindividualwindows. Thethesisfirstaddressesthetech-
nical infrastructure to construct spatially aware multi-display environments and irregular
displays. Based on this infrastructure, novel WIMP interaction and information presenta-
tion techniques are demonstrated, exploiting the system’s knowledge of the environment
and the window content. These techniques cover two areas: spatially-aware cross-display
navigationtechniquesforefficientinformationaccessonremotedisplaysandwindowman-
agement techniques incorporating knowledge of display form factors and window content
to support information discovery, manipulation, and sharing.
Results of user studies indicate that environment- and content-awareness of WIMP
interfaces indeed improves information management in many varieties of emerging display
environments. Awareness of the environment and the window content thereby can be
facilitated without an obtrusive and expensive hardware and software infrastructure.
Keywords. WIMP Interfaces; Multi-Display Environments; Irregular Displays; Large-
Scale Displays; Information Management; Human-Computer Interaction; Computer-
Supported Cooperative Work; Window Management; Information Presentation; Cross-
Display Navigation; Windowing Systems
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Statutory Declaration
I declare that I have authored this thesis independently, that I have not used other than
the declared sources / resources, and that I have explicitly marked all material which has
been quoted either literally or by content from the used sources.
Place Date Signature
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Ich erkl¨are an Eides statt, dass ich die vorliegende Arbeit selbstst¨andig verfasst, andere als
die angegebenen Quellen/Hilfsmittel nicht benutzt, und die den benutzten Quellen w¨ortlich
und inhaltlich entnommene Stellen als solche kenntlich gemacht habe.
Ort Datum Unterschrift

Acknowledgments
There is a large number of people without whom this thesis would not have been pos-
sible and many people that directly or indirectly supported my work through technical,
scientific, or personal support. First of all, I want to acknowledge my supervisor Dieter
Schmalstieg who gave me the opportunity to join his research group at Graz University of
Technology. Iparticularlywanttothankhimforlettingmepursuemyowngoals–despite
often going far away from the actual research agenda of this institute – while still guiding
and supporting my work. I also want to thank my referee Andreas Butz from Ludwig-
Maximilian University in Munich for his spontaneous and uncomplicated agreement to
support this thesis and our precedent discussions at conferences.
In addition, I want to acknowledge all my colleagues of the Deskotheque project. First
of all, I want to thank Christian Pirchheim for teaching me so many things about Linux,
for the countless shell scripts, for doing so much “dirty” work in our lab, and for endless
discussions – not necessarily limited to the project. I also want to point out the short
but fruitful collaboration with Werner Puff who made valuable contributions to the visual
links infrastructure and was also a great help for porting the Deskotheque framework.
Finally, Markus Steinberger was more than just a “coding monkey” for this project. Still,
I first want to point out his stunning ability to implement high-performance solutions to
complexoptimizationproblemsinminimumtime. Ialsowanttothankhimforhisgeneral
support in the last year of the project.
Apart from the project members, there are many other colleagues at ICG that deserve
being mentioned at this point, for discussions and support: Alexander Lex and Marc
Streit,AlbertWalzer,RaphaelGrassetandErnstKruijff,MarkDokter,MarkusMurschitz,
Werner Trobin, Matthias Ru¨ther, and Christopher Zach, Erick Mendez, Markus Tatzgern,
Andreas Wurm, and many more. A special thank, of course, goes to all the participants
of our user studies, their patience and all their valuable feedback! This is probably also
the right spot to also acknowledge all the Linux open source developers – especially the
Compiz and multi-pointer X developers.
Finally, I want to thank my family who made this work possible by believing in me
all these years. I want to gratefully mention my partner Martin for always being there for
me, for all his support and endless patience. The least I can do is dedicate this thesis to
you.
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