Abstract: A software system for developing interactive scientific visualization applications quickly, with a minimum of programming effort, is described. This application visualization system (AVS) is an application framework targeted at scientists and engineers. The goal of the system is to make applications that combine interactive graphics and high computational requirements easier to develop for both programmers and nonprogrammers. AVS is designed around the concept of software building blocks, or modules, which can be interconnected to form visualization applications. AVS allows flow networks of existing modules to be constructed using a direct-manipulation user interface, and it automatically generates a simple user interface to each module. >

Abstract: A description is given of Erica, a computer workstation with a unique user interface. The workstation is equipped with imaging hardware and software, which automatically record a digital portrait of the user's eye. From the features of the current portrait, the interface calculates the approximate location of the user's eye-gaze on the computer screen. The computer then executes commands associated with the menu option currently displayed at this screen location. In this way, the user can interact with the computer, run applications software, and manage peripheral devices-all simply by looking at an appropriate sequence of menu options displayed on the screen. The eye-gaze interface technology, its implementation in Erica, and its application as a prosthetic device are described. >

Abstract: The authors describe a user interface toolkit, InterViews, that offers a rich set of composition mechanisms and a variety of predefined objects, allowing easy implementation of complex user interfaces. InterViews supports composition of three object categories, each implemented as a hierarchy of object classes derived from a common base class. The categories are interactive objects, structured graphics objects, and structured text objects. The authors present several simple applications and show how InterViews objects can implement their interfaces. They illustrate the benefits of separating interactive behavior and abstract data in several different contexts. They discuss InterViews support for end-user customization as well as the status of the current implementation. >

Abstract: : This report provides guidance for implementing SBEACH, the Storm- Induced BEAch CHange model, via a user interface available for the personal computer. SBEACH simulates beach profile change, including the formation and movement of major morphologic features such as longshore bars, troughs, and berms, under varying storm waves and water levels. The personal computer version of SBEACH is accessed through a user interface which facilitates data entry and manipulation, graphical representation of input and output, and execution of the model. The interface also provides considerable error and range checking prior to actual running of the model. The first two chapters of the report present information about applying the model, including hardware requirements, loading SBEACH onto a hard disk, discussion of the interface structure through which the numerical model is operated, and guidance for model calibration. The final chapter is written as a tutorial, guiding the user in installing, running, and working through several example simulations.

Abstract: Human-computer interface management, from a computer science viewpoint, focuses on the process of developing quality human-computer interfaces, including their representation, design, implementation, execution, evaluation, and maintenance. This survey presents important concepts of interface management: dialogue independence, structural modeling, representation, interactive tools, rapid prototyping, development methodologies, and control structures. Dialogue independence is the keystone concept upon which all the other concepts depend. It is a characteristic that separates design of the interface from design of the computational component of an application system so that modifications in either tend not to cause changes in the other. The role of a dialogue developer, whose main purpose is to create quality interfaces, is a direct result of the dialogue independence concept. Structural models of the human-computer interface serve as frameworks for understanding the elements of interfaces and for guiding the dialogue developer in their construction. Representation of the human-computer interface is accomplished by a variety of notational schemes for describing the interface. Numerous kinds of interactive tools for human-computer interface development free the dialogue developer from much of the tedium of "coding" dialogue. The early ability to observe behavior of the interface—and indeed that of the whole application system—provided by rapid prototyping increases communication among system designers, implementers, evaluators, and end-users. Methodologies for interactive system development consider interface management to be an integral part of the overall development process and give emphasis to evaluation in the development life cycle. Finally, several types of control structures govern how sequencing among dialogue and computational components is designed and executed. Numerous systems for human-computer interface management are presented t o illustrate these concepts.

Abstract: Designers striving for user interface consistency can resemble Supreme Court justices trying to define pornography: each of us feels we know it when we see it, but people often disagree and a precise definition remains elusive. A close examination suggests that consistency is an unreliable guide and that designers would often do better to focus on users' work environments.

Abstract: A stereotype represents a collection of attributes that often co-occur in people. Stereotypes can play an important role in a user modeling system because they enable the system to make a large number of plausible inferences on the basis of a substantially smaller number of observations. These inferences must, however, be treated as defaults, which can be overridden by specific observations. Thus any stereotype-based user-modeling system must include techniques for nonmonotonic reasoning. This chapter will discuss the role that stereotypes can play in a user modeling system and it will outline specific techniques that can be used to implement stereotype-based reasoning in such systems.

Abstract: A file system for managing data files for access by a plurality of users of a data processing system that includes internal storage (41) for buffering, external storage (44), and a file user interface (I) by which the plurality of users request access to data files. A first level, coupled to the file user interface (41) for temporary storage of data to be accessed by the plurality of users, and generates requests for transactions with external storage (44) in support of such allocations. A second level is coupled to the first level and the external storage (44) and responds to the request for transactions with the external storage (44) for managing the transactions for storage of data to, and retrieval of data from, the external storage (44).

Abstract: An apparatus for a closed circuit television network having a plurality of video cameras producing video signals, a plurality of video display monitors and a video switcher apparatus coupled therebetween, comprising control apparatus coupled to the video switcher apparatus for controlling which video signals are displayed on each of the plurality of video display monitors. Also provided are graphics user interface apparatus coupled to the control apparatus for permitting a user to operate the control apparatus, thereby permitting the user to control which video signals are displayed on the plurality of video display monitors.

Abstract: A general purpose computer, such as a personal computer, is programmed for sound-synchronized random access and display of synthesized actors ("synactors") on a frame-by-frame basis. The interface between a user and the animation system is defined as a stage or acting metaphor. The user interface provides the capability to create files defining individually accessible synactors representing real or imaginary persons, animated characters and objects or scenes which can be programmed to perform speech synchronized action. Synactor speech is provided by well-known speech synthesis techniques or, alternatively, by inputting speech samples and communication characteristics to define a digital model of the speech and related animation for a particular synactor. A synactor is defined as combination of sixteen predefined images; eight images to be synchronized with speech and eight images to provide additional animated expression. Once created, a synactor may be manipulated similarly to a file or document in any application. Once created, a synactor is controlled with scripts defined and edited by a user via the user interface.

Abstract: KNOME is the user modeling component of UC, a natural language consultation system for the UNIX operating system. During the course of an interactive session with a user, KNOME infers the user’s level of expertise from the dialog and maintains a model of the user’s knowledge of the UNIX domain. KNOME’s model of the user makes use of a double-stereotype system in which one set of stereotypes represents the user’s expertise and another represents the difficulty level of the information. KNOME is used in UC to help disambiguate the user’s statements, avoid telling the user something that the user already knows, take advantage of prior user knowledge in presenting new information, and detect situations where the user lacks pertinent facts or where the user has a misconception. UC also models its own knowledge of UNIX with meta-knowledge (explicit facts about the limitations of the system’s own knowledge base), which is used to help in correcting user misconceptions.

Abstract: The authors present a survey of recent research in adaptive interface computer software as well as a discussion of factors that require consideration in designing this software. An adaptive interface needs to include a knowledge base that encompasses four domains. These four domains are knowledge of the current user, knowledge of the interaction scheme, knowledge of the problem task, and knowledge of the underlying system. The authors review and discuss these knowledge bases along with the positive and negative aspects of adaptive interfaces. >

Abstract: Touch dialogue User Interface (U.I.) for programming a reproduction machine using a touch control CRT screen with display providing a message area, U.I. state selections, and plural tabbed file folders, each file folder when opened in turn displaying a smaller card file of tabbed cards with adjacent work area, each card in the card file when opened providing a display of icons representing first level machine programming selections for touch selection, each icon when touched displaying further icons representing second level programming selections in the work area for touch selection.

Abstract: The graphics capabilities and speed of current hardware systems allow the exploration of 3D and animation in user interfaces, while improving the degree of interaction as well. In order to fully utilize these capabilities, new software architectures must support multiple, asynchronous, interacting agents (the Multiple Agent Problem), and support smooth interactive animation (the Animation Problem). The Cognitive Coprocessor is a new user interface architecture designed to solve these two problems, while supporting highly interactive user interfaces that have 2D and 3D animations. This architecture includes 3D Rooms, a 3D analogy to the Rooms system with Rooms Buttons extended to Interactive Objects that deal with 3D, animation, and gestures. This research is being tested in the domain of Information Visualization, which uses 2D and 3D animated artifacts to represent the structure of information. A prototype, called the Information Visualizer, has been built.

Abstract: A user interface for directing the programming of operating parameters for patient blood pressure testing into and downloading blood pressure data from ambulatory patient blood pressure monitoring units. The user interface operates on a system comprising a plurality of microprocessor based, ambulatory blood pressure measuring patient units, an office control unit, and a data processing center, typically accessed over telephone lines. An office control unit is used to program patient units with test regimens for specific patients. The control units are also used to download data from the patient units and to transfer the data, along with patient identifying data, to the central data processing facility. The office control unit includes local memory which stores various interface routines, a microprocessor for executing the routines, a 12-character keypad allowing input of integers and a display for displaying prompts to the user. Upon initial power up of the control unit, an operator using the control unit is prompted through a start up sequence and a menu selection sequence to carry out the desired functions of the system. All selections are made, and all operating parameters are entered, through a telephone like keypad. The display indicates to the user which parameter entry of which is called for and which menu items are available for selection. During transfer of data to the central processing facility, additional prompts may be given to the operator by voice over the telephone handset.

Abstract: Hypertext offers users a simple, flexible way to navigate through electronic information systems but at the potential risk of becoming lost in the network of interconnected pieces of information. A study was conducted on information retrieval using a commercial hypertext-based help system. It was found that the predominant search strategy was “browsing” (characterized by scanning tables of contents and paging through topics), rather than employing the indexes ("analytical search"). Although subjects did not get lost, individuals with better spatial visualization skills, as measured by a standardized test, were faster at retrieving information and returned to the top of the information hierarchy less often than those with poorer spatial visualization skills. These results support previous studies that have found a strong preference by users for browsing in hypertext systems and extend those findings to a new domain (help), a different type of user interface, and a different information architecture. In addition, the results demonstrate the importance of spatial visualization ability for efficient navigation and information retrieval in a hierarchical hypertext system.

Abstract: An Expert System 10 for providing diagnostics to a data communications network 5. Alarms from a Network Manager 24 are received and queued by an Event Manager 117 and then filtered by an Alarm Filter 118 to remove redundant alarms. Alarms which are ready for processing are then posted to a queue referred to as a Bulletin Board 120. A Controller 112 determines which one of the posted goals has the highest priority by considering a priority number associated with the goal plus a time of arrival of the goal. An Inference Engine 122 uses information from an Expert Information Structure 111 to solve the highest priority goal by a process called instantiation. The process of solving the goal may be interrupted by a pause or suspension in order to perform tests under the direction of a Network Test Manager 124 or retrieve other information during which time other goals may be processed. Expert information is entered using a user friendly User Interface 104 which reduces need for the participation of a Knowledge Engineer. Configuration information about the network is maintained in a Network Structure Knowledge Base 109 by a Network Configuration Module 108. The Expert System 10 may operate in any of three modes: manual, wherein tests must be approved by or directed by an operator; automatic, where the tests are run automatically without operator intervention; and semiautomatic, where operator approval is required for certain tests such as interruptive tests and other tests such as non-interruptive tests may proceed without operator intervention.

Abstract: The authors describe an interface system called Athena Muse. Muse is an experiment kit for the construction of multimedia learning environments. Learning environments developed with Muse offer a diverse set of complementary interaction techniques, styles, and devices. An interface developer can choose from four representation approaches: directed graphs, multidimensional spatial frameworks, declarative constraints, and procedural languages. >

Abstract: A method and apparatus for encapsulating an application tool into a computer-aided software development system that includes a number of standard software development tools. The application tool is integrated into the software development system without modification of its code. An interface description file that defines desired operations in responding to predefined events received from the development tools and from a user interface is complied to generate a symbol table and a statement table. The symbol table and the statement table are evaluated to generate objects which define operations that are performed when responding to the predefined events. An event handler responds to the predefined events received from the development tools and from the user interface by evaluating objects corresponding to the predefined events and executing the operations defined therein. Notifications received from the development tools can be utilized to trigger predefined operations by the application tool. A subprocess controller permits the application tool to be run locally or on a remote host computer.

Abstract: The Lapidary user interface tool allows all pictorial aspects of programs to be specified graphically. In addition, the behavior of these objects at run-time can be specified using dialogue boxes and by demonstration. In particular, Lapidary allows the designer to draw pictures of application-specific graphical objects which will be created and maintained at run-time by the application. This includes the graphical entities that the end user will manipulate (such as the components of the picture), the feedback that shows which objects are selected (such as small boxes on the sides and corners of an object), and the dynamic feedback objects (such as hair-line boxes to show where an object is being dragged). In addition, Lapidary supports the construction and use of “widgets” (sometimes called interaction techniques or gadgets) such as menus, scroll bars, buttons and icons. Lapidary therefore supports using a pre-defined library of widgets, and defining a new library with a unique “look and feel.” The run-time behavior of all these objects can be specified in a straightforward way using constraints and abstract descriptions of the interactive response to the input devices. Lapidary generalizes from the specific example pictures to allow the graphics and behaviors to be specified by demonstration.

Abstract: Based on three years of user feedback, a design team at IRIS embarked on a project to enhance Intermedia to better support small groups of collaborators, particularly those involved with document review and revision. Towards this end, we defined user-level requirements for the new functionality. The result of this process was the design and implementation of InterNote. One aspect of InterNote involves a fundamental extension to Intermedia's navigational linking paradigm. Instead of simply being able to traverse links, users are now also able to transfer data across the links using a technique we call warm linking. In this paper we describe extensions to our hypermedia framework to support annotative collaboration, including the user interface of the new linking functionality and the InterNote extension. Finally, we discuss our plans for future work.

Abstract: A system to query databases using diagrams as a standard user interface is proposed. The system, called Query by Diagram* (QBD*), makes use of a conceptual data model, a query language on this model, and a graphical user interface. The conceptual model is the entity-relationship model. The query language, whose expressive power allows recursive queries, supports visual interaction. The main characteristics of the interface are ease of use and the availability of a rich set of primitives for schema selection and query formulation. The expressive power of QBD* and G/sup +/, which are the only languages allowing recursive queries to be expressed graphically are compared. >

Abstract: This paper focuses on two commonly-made claims about the utility of speech input: (1) It is faster than typed input; and (2) it also increases user productivity by providing an additional response channel. These claims are investigated, both through a review of research, and through an empirical evaluation of speech input. The research review supports both claims. Further, it suggests that speech input will be more beneficial when users are engaged in multiple tasks mapped onto multiple user-response modalities, and when speech is used in tasks characterized by short transactions of a highly interactive nature. The empirical study evaluated the utility of speech input in the context of a VLSI chip design package, and compared speech to typed, full-word input, single keypresses, and mouse clicks. Results supported the benefits of speech input over typed, full-word commands, and to a lesser extent, single keypresses. For the restricted set of commands that could be accomplished with mouse clicks, speech input and mouse clicks were equally efficient. These results are interpreted in terms of a general “ease vs expressiveness” guideline for assigning modalities to tasks in a user interface.

Abstract: Office computer users view well over a billion displays in a given year. The savings of only a fraction of a second in the time it takes users to process each display can potentially lead to enormous time and cost savings. In recent research investigators have shown that on average subjects are quicker to find a target option in a highlighted display than in a display without highlighting. Paradoxically, in related research other investigators have shown that subjects are slower to find a target in a highlighted display than in a display without highlighting. In an attempt to resolve this paradox, an additional set of experiments was performed. Results from these experiments suggest that in order to determine whether highlighting will be of benefit, one must know the type of highlighting, the level of highlighting validity, and the probability that subjects attend first to the highlighted options.

Abstract: In conventional Boolean retrieval systems, users have difficulty controlling the amount of output obtained from a given query. This paper describes the design of a user interface which permits gradual enlargement or refinement of the user's query by browsing through a graph of term and document subsets. This graph is obtained from a lattice automatically generated from the usual document-term relation. The major design features of the proposed interface are the integration of menu, fill-in the blank and direct manipulation modes of interaction within the “fisheye view” [Furnas, 1986] paradigm. A prototype user interface incorporating some of these ideas has been implemented on a microcomputer.The resulting interface is well adapted to various kinds of users and needs. More experienced users with a particular subject in mind can directly specify a query which results into a jump to a particular vertex in the graph. From there, the user can refine his initial query by browsing through the graph from that point on. On the other hand, casual users without any prior knowledge of the contents of the system or users without any particular subject in mind can freely navigate through the graph without ever specifying any query.

Abstract: A real-time speech processing development system has a control subsystem (CS) and a recognition subsystem (RS) interconnected by a CS/RS interface. The control subsystem includes a control processor, an operator interface, a user interface, and a control program module for loading any one of a plurality of control programs which employ speech recognition processes. The recognition system RS includes a master processor, speech signal processor, and template matching processors all interconnected on a common bus which communicates with the control subsystem through the mediation of the CS/RS interface. The two-part configuration allows the control subsystem to be accessed by the operator for non-real-time system functions, and the recognition subsystem to be accessed by the user for real-time speech processing functions. An embodiment of a speaker verification system includes template enrollment, template training, recognition by template-concatenation and time alignment, silence and filler template generation, and speaker monitoring modes.

Abstract: ThingLab II is an object-oriented constraint programming system designed specifically for interactive user interface construction and implemented in Smalltalk-80 For constraints to be effective in building user interfaces, they must not impede the responsiveness of the user interface either at run time or during construction. The necessary speed is attained in ThingLab II by making judicious tradeoffs between compilation and interpretation, and by using a fast, incremental algorithm for constraint satisfaction. The resulting system allows user interface components to be assembled, tested, and modified expediently while maintaining interactive responsiveness.