article

Free access

Rooms: the use of multiple virtual workspaces to reduce space contention in a window-based graphical user interface

Editor: R. Daniel Bergeron Authors:

D. Austin Henderson, Jr.,

Stuart CardAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), Volume 5, Issue 3

Pages 211 - 243

https://doi.org/10.1145/24054.24056

Published: 01 July 1986 Publication History

Abstract

A key constraint on the effectiveness of window-based human-computer interfaces is that the display screen is too small for many applications. This results in “window thrashing,” in which the user must expend considerable effort to keep desired windows visible. Rooms is a window manager that overcomes small screen size by exploiting the statistics of window access, dividing the user's workspace into a suite of virtual workspaces with transitions among them. Mechanisms are described for solving the problems of navigation and simultaneous access to separated information that arise from multiple workspaces.

References

[1]

BOLT, R.A. The Human Interface. Lifetime Learning Publications, Belmont, Calif., 1984.

[2]

CARD, S. K., AND HENDERSON, D. A., JR. A multiple virtual-workspace interface to support user task switching. In CHI '87 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Toronto, Canada, Apr. 6-9). ACM/SIGCHI, New York, 1987.

[3]

CARD, S. K., PAVEL, M., AND FARRELL, J. Window-based computer dialogues. In Human- Computer Interaction--Interact '84, B. Shackel, Ed. North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1985, pp. 239-243.

[4]

CHAN, P. P. Learning considerations in user interface design: The Room model. Tech. Rep. CS-84-16, Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 1984.

[5]

DENNING, P.J. The working set model for program behavior. Commun. ACM 11, 5 (May 1968), 323-333.

[6]

DENNING, P.J. Virtual memory. ACM Comput. Surv. 2, 3 (Sept. 1970), 153-189.

[7]

DENNING, P.J. Working sets past and present. IEEE Trans. So{tw. Eng. SE-6, 1 (Jan. 1980), 66-84.

[8]

DISESSA, A. A principled design for an integrated computational environment. Hum.-Comput. Interaction I, 1 (Jan. 1985), 1-47.

[9]

DONAHUE, j., AND WIDOM, J. Whiteboards: A graphical database tool. ACM Trans. Off. Inf. Syst. 4, 1 (Jan. 1986), 24-41.

[10]

ENGELBART, D. C., AND ENGLISH, W.K. A research center for augmenting human intellect. In Proceedings o{ the AFIPS Fall Joint Computer Conference, vol. 33 (San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 9-11). AFIPS Press, Reston, Va., 1968, pp. 395-410.

[11]

FEINER, S., NAGY, S., AND VAN DAM, A. An experimental system for creating and presenting interactive graphical documents. ACM Trans. Graph. 1, 1 (Jan. 1982), 59-77.

[12]

FISHER, S. S., MCGREEVY, M., HUMPHRIES, J., AND ROBINETT, W. Virtual environment display system. In Proceedings of the 1986 Workshop on interactive 3D Graphics, F. Crow and S. M. Pizer, Eds. (Chapel Hill, N.C., Oct.). ACM, New York, 1986. To be published.

[13]

FURNESS, G. Generalized fisheye views. In CHI '86 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, M. Mantei and P. Orbeton, Eds. (Boston, Mass., Apr. 14-18). ACM/SIGCHI, New York, 1986, pp. 16-23.

[14]

GOLDBERG, A. SmaUtalk-80: The Interactive Programming Environment. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1984.

[15]

HALASZ, F., MORAN, T., AND TRIG6, R. NoteCards in a nutshell. In CHI '87 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems {Toronto, Canada, Apr. 6-9). ACM/SIGCHI, New York, 1987.

[16]

HEROT, C. F. Spatial management of data. ACM Trans. Database Syst. 5, 4 (Dec. 1980}, 493-514.

[17]

HURST, J., AND WALKER, K., EDS. The Problem-Oriented System. MEDCOM Press, New York, 1972.

[18]

KAHN, K.C. Program behavior and load dependent system performance. Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. of Computer Science, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, Ind., Aug. 1976.

[19]

MADISON, A. W. Characteristics of Program Localities. University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1982.

[20]

MCGREGOR, S. The viewer window package. In The Cedar System: An Anthology o{ Documentation, J. H. Horning, Ed. Tech. Rep. CSL-83-14, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, Calif., 1983.

[21]

MONT~, L. In Human-Computer Interaction--Interact '84, B. Shackel, Ed. North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1985, pp. 603-609.

[22]

ROBERTSON, G., NEWELL, A., AND RAMAKRISHNA, K. The ZOG approach to man-machine communication. Int. J. Man-Machine Studies 14, 4 (May 1981), 461-488.

[23]

SMITH, D. Pygmalion. Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. of Computer Science, Stanford Univ., Stanford, Calif., 1975.

[24]

SMITH, D. C., IRBY, C., KIMBALL, R., VERPLANK, W., AND HARSLEM, E. Designing the Star user interface. Byte 7, 4 (Apr. 1982), 242-282.

[25]

SPENCE, R., AND APPERLY, S. Data base navigation: An office environment for the professional. Behav. Inf. Technol. 1, 1 (Jan. 1982), 43-54.

[26]

SUTHERLAND, I.S. Sketchpad: A man-machine graphical communication system. In AFIPS Spring Joint Computer Conference, vol. 23, 1963, pp. 329-346.

Cited By

Preim BMeuschke MWeiß V(2024)A Survey of Medical Visualization Through the Lens of MetaphorsIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics10.1109/TVCG.2023.333054630:10(6639-6664)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2024
Dix A(2024)The future of PIM: pragmatics and potentialHuman–Computer Interaction10.1080/07370024.2024.2356155(1-28)Online publication date: 25-Jun-2024
Myers B(2024)Pick, Click, Flick!undefinedOnline publication date: 14-Mar-2024
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Rooms: the use of multiple virtual workspaces to reduce space contention in a window-based graphical user interface

Recommendations

A user interface toolkit based on graphical objects and constraints
Special issue: 'OOPSLA 88 Conference Proceedings

One of the most difficult aspects of creating graphical, direct manipulation user interfaces is managing the relationships between the graphical objects on the screen and the application data structures that they represent. Coral (Constraint-based ...
A compact graphical representation of user interface interaction objects
Graphical User Interface for the Container Loading Problem: [An aproach using JavaScript]
Interacción '14: Proceedings of the XV International Conference on Human Computer Interaction

This paper presents a Graphical User Interface for a service used to solve the Container Loading Problem as applied to the logistic industry, commonly encountered in transportation and wholesaling industries. This interface allows users to see how items ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Graphics

ACM Transactions on Graphics Volume 5, Issue 3

July 1986

97 pages

ISSN:0730-0301

EISSN:1557-7368

DOI:10.1145/24054

Editor:
R. Daniel Bergeron

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 1986 ACM.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 July 1986

Published in TOG Volume 5, Issue 3

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Qualifiers

Article

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

321
Total Citations
View Citations
3,466
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)247
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)15

Reflects downloads up to 24 Sep 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Preim BMeuschke MWeiß V(2024)A Survey of Medical Visualization Through the Lens of MetaphorsIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics10.1109/TVCG.2023.333054630:10(6639-6664)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2024
Dix A(2024)The future of PIM: pragmatics and potentialHuman–Computer Interaction10.1080/07370024.2024.2356155(1-28)Online publication date: 25-Jun-2024
Myers B(2024)Pick, Click, Flick!undefinedOnline publication date: 14-Mar-2024
Horváth IBerki B(2023)Investigating the Operational Complexity of Digital Workflows Based on Human Cognitive AspectsElectronics10.3390/electronics1203052812:3(528)Online publication date: 19-Jan-2023
Suh SMin BPalani SXia H(2023)Sensecape: Enabling Multilevel Exploration and Sensemaking with Large Language ModelsProceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3586183.3606756(1-18)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2023
Zhang YSun JDing QZhang LWang QGeng XRui Y(2023)Towards Workplace Metaverse: A Human-Centered Approach for Designing and Evaluating XR Virtual DisplaysInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2023.2250056(1-16)Online publication date: 12-Sep-2023
Atanasiu V(2022)Applications of the Document Towers method of representing document structuresInformation Design Journal10.1075/idj.20026.ata27:2(144-190)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2022
Kumar NLee S(2022)Human-machine interface in smart factory: A systematic literature reviewTechnological Forecasting and Social Change10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121284174(121284)Online publication date: Jan-2022
Berki B(2022)Role of Presence, Memory and Spatial Ability in a Desktop Virtual RealityAccentuated Innovations in Cognitive Info-Communication10.1007/978-3-031-10956-0_4(79-97)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2022
Collazos CFardoun HAlSekait DPereira CMoreira F(2021)Designing Online Platforms Supporting Emotions and AwarenessElectronics10.3390/electronics1003025110:3(251)Online publication date: 22-Jan-2021
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Article

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents