David P. Vronay

Alternative interfaces for chat

We describe some common problems experienced by users of computer-based text chat, and show how many of these problems relate to the loss of timing-specific information. We suggest that thinking of chat as a real-time streaming media data type, with status and channel indicators, might solve some of these problems. We then present a number of alternative chat interfaces along with results from user studies comparing and contrasting them both with each other and with the standard chat interface. These studies show some potential, but indicate that more work needs to be done.

Designing a generalized 3D carousel view

In this paper we describe a 3D carousel view design. We take the basic carousel model and elaborate it to hold an arbitrary number of items in an efficient manner. We equip this model with various interaction methods and a novel component: the termination marker. We also explore more detailed design issues, like animation, by implementing a prototype. We report essential user feedback and how it affected our design.

Evaluation of alternative presentation control techniques

Although slideshow presentation applications, such as PowerPoint™ have been popular for years, the techniques commercially available to control them rely on mouse and keyboard, which can be restrictive for the presenters. We evaluated two representative alternative designs of presentation control techniques - Bare Hand and Laser Pointer, through a Wizard-of-Oz user study. The result showed that Bare Hand was better than Laser Pointer and Standard (mouse/keyboard) control in terms of acceptance and preference from both presenters and audience. We also proposed design directions based on user feedback.