Doctoral Theses / Doktorsavhandlingar

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Browsing Doctoral Theses / Doktorsavhandlingar by Subject "Computer Science"

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    Breaking the Screen Barrier
    (2000) Holmquist, Lars Erik; Department of Informatics
    This thesis is based on an important development in human-computer interface design: the move from primarily screen-based interfaces – based on the Windows-Icons-Menus-Pointer (WIMP) and Graphical Users Interfaces (GUI) paradigm developed for desktop computers – to computer interfaces which take advantage of the richness of the user’s physical environment. A common thread in the thesis is the attempt to expand the user’s workspace, whether that expansion is kept within the limits of the computer screen or brings the interaction to devices outside the desktop – i.e. to “break the screen barrier”, figuratively or literally. The thesis consists of five papers. The first paper describes flip zooming, a visualization method that uses the workspace on a screen more effectively. The second paper puts flip zooming and other similar methods within a general theoretical framework, which is both descriptive and constructive. The third paper describes WEST, A Web Browser for Small Terminals, which was an application where flip zooming was implemented on hand-held computers. The fourth paper describes the Hummingbird, a mobile counterpart to desktop-based workplace awareness applications. The fifth and final paper gives a general theory for interactive systems where physical objects are used to access digital information that is not contained within the actual object. Additionally, the introduction discusses how the thesis relates to Simon’s science of the artificial, Dahlbom’s foundations for an artificial science, and the new informatics, the scientific discipline within which the work was performed. A spiral model of design, Verplank’s spiral, is used to describe the research process.
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    Designing Everyday Computational Things
    (2001) Redström, Johan; Department of Informatics
    The prospect of ubiquitous computing in everyday life urges us to raise basic design issues pertaining to how we will live with, and not only use, computers. To design for everyday life involves much more than enabling people to accomplish certain tasks more effectively, and therefore, traditional approaches to human-computer interaction that focus on usability are not sufficient. To support critical discussion of, and reflection upon, the design of everyday computational things, both new design philosophies and a richer collection of design examples are needed. This thesis reports on the development of a design philosophy based on investigations of the design space of everyday computational things. Using experimental design, a collection of design examples illustrating how computational things can become integral parts of everyday environments has been developed. These investigations have been centred on: amplification of things and environments using computational technology; different forms of information presentation; the use of everyday materials in the design of computational things; and the aesthetics of computational things in use. The specific results are a number of design examples, including support for local interaction, access to digital information using physical objects as tokens, information displays such as the ChatterBox and Informative Art, and examples of Slow Technology. The general results are presented as a design philosophy for everyday computational things. This design philosophy is aimed at design for meaningful presence, rather than efficient use, and states that computational technology is a design material, that time is the central design parameter and that aesthetics is the basis for design for presence.
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    Flip Zooming. The Development of an Information Visualization Technique
    (2000) Björk, Staffan; Department of Informatics
    This thesis describes the development of a Focus+Context information visualization technique called Flip Zooming. Based on two initial examples of the technique, the work reported here expands the description and functionality of the technique by the development of a number of applications as well as by some theoretical contributions. The thesis consists of six papers and a frame. The first paper describes The Digital Variants Browser, which supports comparative studies of variants of texts. The second paper, Hierarchical Flip Zooming, describes how the technique can be generalized to support hierarchical visualization by use of nested instances of Flip Zooming. The third paper describes WEST (a WEB Browser for Small Terminals), an application of Flip Zooming for the visualization of web pages on hand-held computers. The fourth paper, PowerView, describes another application designed for hand-held computers; this application supports tasks that require several different types of information. The fifth paper introduces a framework for describing Flip Zooming and other Focus+Context visualizations as higher-order visualizations. The sixth paper identifies preconceptions about Focus+Context techniques that have become apparent during the work on Flip Zooming, and shows how these preconceptions can be transgressed to create novel visualizations. The frame relates the Flip Zooming technique to other information visualization techniques and describes the development of the technique by using Mackay and Fayard's model for research within Human-Computer Interaction. It concludes by presenting specific guidelines for developing future Flip Zooming applications, as well as general guidelines for developing other information visualization techniques.