HCI Dissertation

7/29/2019 HCI Dissertation

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ZOOMING OUT

FROM THE DESKTOPThe use of metaphors

in HumanComputer

Interface design

Giuseppe CostanzaMA Communication Design,

Digital Media 2008


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Zooming out from the desktopTe ue o metahor in Humanomuter nterace deign

Giuseppe CostanzaMA Communication Design, Digital Media

2008


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Abstract

Te dekto/oce metahor i at the bae in the interace o the

majority o comuter currently in ue. Te dekto metahorwa introduced in late 1970 to make comuter riendlier to o-

ce worker. oday thi tye o interace and metahor are not

adequate with comuter uer need. Ti diertation exlain

why thi obolete concet i till in ue. Ten ome alternative,

emerging interace are reented. Te lat chater then de-

cribe the ne ato er hild roject a an examle o how

interace deign can ucceully take dierent route rom whati conidered the indutry tandard.


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Table of contents

Preface

Introduction

1 History of computer interfaces

1.1 The 3 eras of computer interfaces

1.2 Xerox Star

1.3 Apple Macintosh

1.4 Microsoft Windows rise

1.5 Mac OS X

2 The Desktop Metaphor

2.1 Why a desktop metaphor

2.2 Criticisms to the desktop metaphor

2.3 Magic Cup and Microsoft Bob

2.4 Why is the desktop metaphor still in use?

3 Alternatives to the desktop metaphor

3.1 Project X - HotSauce

3.2 Task Gallery

3.3 Other interfaces based on three-dimensional graphic

3.4 Zooming interfaces

4 One Laptop per Child case study

4.1 The One Laptop Per Child project

4.2 OLPC laptop design

4.3 XO user interface

4.4 Criticisms

Conclusions

Bibliography

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iuee otanza, - www.giueecotanza.it

Preface

Ti diertation deal with creen baed media and wa

written and deigned mainly on a creen. eading it a a rintedbook could aear in contrat with the content and the deign

roce but trongly believe that aer and book, a a medium,

have many qualitie that any creen baed device cannot equal.

Book are tangible, eay to read and carry, they allow to eaily

take note and their interace i univerally known. t the ame

time thi diertation contain reerence to multimedia content

that can hardly be rendered in rinted orm. ntead o dicard-ing the book decided to rovide a mall creen baed device

to uort the rinted medium without aecting it mentioned

qualitie. Te mobile hone that come with thi diertation

give acce to multimedia document that comlement the

dicued toic. Every time on a age aear a rounded black

ymbol imilar to the one at the end o thi aragrah, jut oint

the mobile hone camera on it and the creen will dilay the

related content.

D-touch, the technology ued to link content on the mo-

bile hone with the book wa develoed and rovided by

Enrico otanza, a art o hi reearch on viual marker. ore

inormation can be ound on htt://www.d-touch.org/


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thank Enrico, athna amanathan and xel Vogelang or

their uort in develoing thi diertation and all the other

eole that heled me.


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Human and comuter ue very dierent language or

communicating. Human communication i rich, eole uevoice, writing, geture, acial exreion. omuter work in

a very dierent way, they are baed on a imle binary code.

hen eole and comuter have to communicate with each

other they need to nd a oint o contact, a common language

that can be interreted by both. Te oint where human and

comuter meet i named Human-omuter nterace. n in-

terace ha to allow uer to intruct comuter and receive theroduced reult. Human-omuter nterace can have many

dierent orm, today the mot common interace are baed

on moue and keyboard a inut device and creen a outut

device. Human-omuter nterace hould allow eole to

eaily control comuter exreing their will in a natural way,

reventing error and miundertanding. Te main iue con-

cerning human-comuter interace deign are dicued in thi

diertation. ommon interace will be reented, a well a,oible alternative to them.

Te rt chater briey exoe the hitory o human com-

uter interace. n comuter hitory roceing eed ha al-

way increaed, while rice have allen down. Ti tendency

Introduction


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allowed to emloy an increaing amount o comuting ower

in interace, making comuter language eaier or human

and hifing the communicational eort rom eole to com-uter. (Dourih 2001) Te mot imortant moment in human

comuter interace hitory i the introduction o grahical in-

terace and the adotion o the dekto metahor. Te dekto

metahor wa reented to the general ublic at the end o 1970;

(oggridge 2007) it allowed tudent, oce worker and bui-

nemen to aroach comuter or the rt time. Te dekto

metahor erectly uited uer need o that time.

Now, 30 year afer the dekto metahor introduction, the way

eole ue comuter i very dierent. omuter are ued to

lay videogame, liten to muic, watch movie, browe the

web, communicate with other eole; they are ued at home

on a table, on the oa, on the bed, in car. But our indien-

able aitant are till communicating with u uing the ame

dekto metahor. n the rt chater it i ointed out that notmuch ha haened in human comuter interace hitory, ince

the introduction o the dekto metahor. ot comuter u-

er exerienced older and le cabinet rt a comuter icon

and later a real world tool to organize document. Ti di-

ertation argue that the way comuter organize inormation i

contrained to concet that are not u-to-date.

n the econd chater it i exlained why the dekto metahorwa choen. ome conideration, uorted by authoritative

oint o view, about the ue o metahor in interace deign

are reented. etahor are owerul linguitic intrument

ued to comare omething unknown to omething known, but

i ued in a wrong way they can be mileading. t the end o


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the chater it i illutrated the reaon why comuter indutry i

anchored to the ue o out-o-date concet and metahor.

Te third chater introduce ome commercial and exeri-

mental interace aimed at imroving or relacing the dekto

metahor. the dekto metahor i till in ue it mean that

any alternative i good enough to relace the current aradigm.

Ten zooming interace aradigm i reented a an emerging

alternative to the dekto metahor. Zooming interace give

uer the oibility to eaily control the level o dilayed in-

ormation, zooming on digital item a i they laid on an innitelane. Te zooming aradigm could mark a new big witch in

human comuter interace hitory. lo thi chater exlain

how zooming interace can better exloit the ower o digital

tool ince they are le anchored to real world metahor. ome

zooming interace concet already aear in current oerating

ytem, but their ull otential have not been exlored or the

general ue, yet.

n the lat chater, the ne ato er hild (OLPC) roject i

reented a a oitive examle o how interace deign can take

dierent route. Te OLPC roject realized a lato addreed at

develoing countrie children. OLPC deigner decided to realize

an interace well uited or intended uer, dicarding the dek-

to metahor and obolete interace deign convention. OLPC

interace i baed on a zoom metahor and it widely relie onatialization a a univeral concet undertandable by dierent

culture.


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Ti chater briey illutrate the evolution o comuter inter-

ace, rom unched card to the mot recent grahical inter-ace. Te introduction o rahical er nterace (GUI) i a

undamental event in the hitory o comuting. Te reaon that

brought to the convention in ue nowaday are exlored more

in deth.

1.1 Te 3 eras o computer interaces

atch computing

ooking at human-comuter interace hitory it i oible to

notice a trend in making comuter interace more abtract and

natural or eole. hen comuter rt aeared, in 1940, they

were very exenive and not very owerul; their calculation

ower wa conidered reciou. Early comuter were mainly

ued or military or commercial uroe. From an economicoint o view, comuter working time wa more exenive than

human worker time, o interace were deigned to avoid com-

utational eort in interreting and comiling the code, leaving

all the eort to human oerator. (Dourih 2001, .1-2) ofware

and dataet were inutted through ile o unched card that

1 History of computer interfaces


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Fig.1 Punched Cards and IBM 29card punch punching machine.


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had to be reared on ecial external machine. (Fig.1) Due to

the comlex yntax and the low uability level o unching ma-

chine, there wa a high error rate; comleting a ingle job tookhour or entire day. Following Eric . aymond claication,1

thi rt era o comuting i dened batch computing. Batch com-

uter were ued aroximately rom 1945 to 1968. Te ollowing

era are command-lin andgraphical. (aymond 2004)

ommand-lin

round 1969 the early ommand-line interace became avail-able. Teir interaction model wa baed on requet exreed

a textual command in a ecialized vocabulary. Tat tye o

interace allowed a near real-time eedback making it oible

or uer to interact with comuter in a much more owerul

way. t i imortant to notice that earliet command-line ytem

ued teletye a inut device. eletye were a mature technol-

ogy in ue ince the beginning o 20

th

century and layed an im-ortant role in making comuter amiliar to many uer. hile

early command line ytem ued rinter to outut reone,

in the mid-1970 video dilay tarted becoming wideread, al-

lowing a ater interaction and a enible cut o cot or ink and

aer. ommand-line interace were much eaier to ue than

batch comuter but comlex command yntax had to be learnt

by uer. (aymond 2004)

1 Eric . aymond i an nternet develoer and writer, i one o the main re-reentative o the oen ource movement.


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Video 1 Engelbart presentation of direct manipulation on a graphical interface.

Point the mobile phone on the symbol below to watch the video.


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Graphical intrac

Te third and lat era o comuter interace i the rahicalnterace era. rahical interace were ormed by the tye o

interace commonly ued nowaday. rahical er nterace

(GUI) were rt introduced by Dougla Engelbart.1 n 1968, when

Engelbart wa a reearcher at tanord eearch ntitute he

reented or the rt time direct maniulation on a grahical

interace uing a comuter with a creen, a tandard tyewriter

keyboard and a mall rolling box called mou. He demontrated

how eay it wa to edit text document thank to that interace.n Engelbart ytem it wa oible to correct, ormat and rint

a text in a way never imagined beore by mot o the eole.

(Video 1) (oggridge 2007)

n 1970 ome o the mot inuential reearcher moved rom

tanord to a brand new reearch centre realized in alo lto by

the aer-coier comany Xerox. t alo lto eearch enter(PARC) were introduced ome o the mot remarkable com-

uter innovation: laer rinter, malltalk,2 WIMp interace3

and the Dekto metahor. (alo lto arch ntr 2008,

ncyclopdia ritannica,viewed 8 ctober 2008, )

Te idea o uing an oce/dekto metahor in comuter inter-ace wa introduced by im ott and arry eler to hel grahic

deigner in undertanding how to behave with electronic data.

1 Engelbart i alo conidered the inventor o the moue.2 malltalk i one o the rt object oriented rogramming language.3 nterace baed on the ue o indow, icon, menu and oint device.


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Video 2 Xerox Star, the rst commercial computer with a graphical interface.

Point the mobile phone on the symbol below to watch the video.


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im ott tell in an interview: (oggridge 2007, .53)

wa thinking about what haen in an oce. omeone got

a document and they want to le it, o they walk over the le

cabinet and ut it in the le cabinet; or i they want to make a

coy o it, they walk over to the coier and they make a coy o it;

or they want to throw it away, o they reach under their dek and

throw it in the trah can.

[] hat ended u on the bar nakin wa what arry and

called ce chematic. t wa a et o icon or a le cabinet,

and a coier, or a rinter in thi cae, and a trah can. Te meta-hor wa that entire document could be grabbed by the moue

and moved around on the creen.

ott and eler ce chematic rincile i exactly what i

in ue in today comuter.

1.2 erox Star

Few year later, in 1981, the dekto metahor reached the market

or the rt time. Te rt commercial roduct uing that tye

o interace wa the Xerox tar. tar comuter wa addreed to

buinemen and organization. Te ytem had to be ued to

roduce, organize and ditribute dierent tye o buine doc-

ument uch a reentation, memo and reort. arget uer

were eole without a background in comuter cience. Te y-tem had to et them ree rom technical iue. ll the alication

needed by target uer were included in the ytem and automat-

ically aociated with correonding document. Tu uer did

not have to worry about tarting the right alication or a given

tak or le. (Video 2) (Johnon et al. 1999, David urbo, viewed


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Fig.2 Page 6 of the original brochure released in 1983 to launch Apple Macintosh.

The pictures show the different users Macintosh was addressed to.


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29 ril 2008, )

Deite it innovative concet, tar wa a commercial ailure,mainly becaue o the carce ower, cauing low eed, a high

rice and inet marketing trategie. (aymond 2004)

tar o wa one o the main reaon o brain drain rom

PARC. round 1980, the mot creative mind at PARC were

anxiou o eeing their idea moving rom the lab to the mar-

ket; Xerox intead wa more intereted in maintaining domi-

nance in the coier market rather than roducing comuter.

(oggridge 2007, .71)

1.3 Apple Macintosh

Te hitory o the GUI at thi oint move to the world amou

comuter comany, ounded by teve ozniak and teve

Job: le omuter. (ary Belli 2008, T York im

ompany, viewed 29 ril 2008, )

arry eler wa one o the reearcher that moved rom PARC

to le. t le eler tarted working with Bill tkinon,

their creative artnerhi roduced ome o the mot ignicant

innovation till in ue in GUI, uch a ull-down menu and

dialog boxe. (oggridge 2007)

fer a rt commercial ailure with the ia, in 1984 le

releaed the acintoh. Te acintoh wa the rt commerciallyucceul comuter uing a point and click grahical interace

controlled through a moue. Te ucce o le acintoh wa

due to the whole deign concet: the rice wa aordable ($2,495),

the cae wa comact and light (8Kg, le than many ortable

o the time), the interace wa imle and uer riendly. (Fig.2)


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Fig.3 Nextstep screenshot. Nextstep introuduced the sharp three-dimensional look and

the x symbol to close windows that became a standard in following operating systems.


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(arcin ichary 2004, arcin ichary, viewed 29 ril 2008,

)

Eric . aymond (2004) oint out, le acintoh

roved that a well deigned GUI could make a dierence in the

ma market. hile the lto interace wa a mere laboratory

toy (aymond 2004), le tranormed it in a uable interace

thank to ve year ent on interace ychology and deign

invetigation.1 t wa the rt time that o much eort wa ut

in comuter interace deign. n the early 1980, other cometi-

tor introduced GUI in the market uch a miga Kicktart oricroof indow, but they were only rough clone o the PARC

GUI with all o it limitation. Te le acintoh oon became

the reerence or all the uture GUIs.

1.4 Microsof Windows rise

n the econd hal o the 1980 minor innovation were intro-

duced by other comanie; the Dock aeared or the rt time in

1987 in corn omuter oerating ytem. Te Dock i a hel

laced at the bottom o the creen, ued to ut hortcut to mot

ued rogram and le. (Jeremy eimer 2005, r chnica,

viewed 4 ugut 2008 )

1988 Nextte oerating ytem introduced a har three-

dimenional look to all the interace comonent and the x ym-bol to cloe window. (Fig.3) (Jeremy eimer 2005,r chnica,

viewed 4 ugut 2008


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Fig.4 Mac OS X screenshot. Windows have a colorful, jelly look, the bottom of the screen

presents the Dock.


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gui.ar/1>) Both eature became a tandard in ollowing OS.

n 1990, mot o the comanie lef the market. icroof

became the market leader, thank to indow 3 releaed in 1990and indow 3.1 releaed in 1992, while le lot it innovative

deign aroach and wa relegated to a niche. aymond (2004)

claim that icroof 1990 ucce i due to the care they took in

adding in it OS eature the cutomer require. nother reaon

o indow 3 ucce i the wideread third-arty uort that

meant a huge quantity o available ofware. (ary Belli n.d.,

T York im ompany, viewed 4 ugut 2008, )n 1995, indow 95 introduced two new eature the tart

menu to acce all the intalled rogram and the akbar to

witch between oen window. icroof uremacy wa mainly

baed on trade agreement. Te eay-o-ue rincile wa a key

one in indow erating ytem, however in 1990 there

were not many innovation in interace deign.

1.5 Mac S

n 2001 le releaed the 10th verion o it oerating ytem.

ac OS i the rt ac OS verion that introduced a quantity

o new eature afer a eriod oor in innovation. Te mot evi-

dent breakthrough introduced by OS wa it viual aearance

clearly in contrat with the indutry tandard. Te claical grey

and har interace wa relaced by a hiny, colourul, jelly look.ore than jut a viual make-u the new interace reented

ome unctional innovation uch a tranarency and hadow

eect to highlight window tack order. nother crucial ele-

ment o the new interace wa the Dock, a multiuroe bar that

rovide eay acce to ome alication and older, dilay


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Video 3 Cover Flow allows to visually browse through huge quantity of folders and docu-

ments in a fast way. Point the mobile phone on the symbol below to watch the video.


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inormation about running alication and hold window in

their minimized tate. (Fig.4) Beide it trong viual aear-

ance, the Dock wa already reent in other oerating ytem. 1

n uture releae o OS , other intereting eature were added,

uch a the owerul textual earch tool named potlightand the

Dahboard. Te Dahboard i a ytem alication that give eay

acce to ome ueul tool uch a a clock, a calendar, a calcula-

tor and it allow a better integration o the nternet inide the o-

erating ytem, thank to ome tool able to retrieve inormation

rom the Net (weather orecat, tock market). (John iracua

2005, r echnica, viewed 5 ugut 2008 )

Te lat verion o OS named eoard, releaed in 2007, in-

troduced two innovative eature. Te rt one i ovr Flo, a

three dimenional interace that allow to viually browe trough

huge quantity o older and document in a at way. (Video 3)

over Flow i in ooition with the actual trend o uing tex-

tual earche to eaily retrieve inormation locally and on-line.Te other innovation introduced in eoard i the im achin,

an eay to ue backu and recovery ytem. Te backu unc-

tion i comletely automated, the only choice i the hard drive

where to ave backu. ime achine introduce the oibility

to browe through all the at verion o le contained in a

older. Te interace i tylih and eective, it allow to croll in a

3 view the content o the elected older and to retrieve it. (John

iracua 2007,r chnica LLC, viewed 5 ugut 2008 )

ome o the new eature introduced in ac OS how a tendency

to relace the dekto metahor, in avour o abtract tool that

1 n corn omuter OS, c. aragrah 1.4


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allow uer to better organize and retrieve digital inormation.

However, the main element o the interace and the interaction

model are not o dierent rom early GUI deigned 30 year ago.ooking at the hort hitory o grahical interace, it i eay to

notice how an early creative eriod wa ollowed by one without

ignicant innovation. Te reult i a lack o roer tool to ue

the alway increaing owerul comuter.

Te next chater exlain more in deth why the Dekto meta-

hor wa o ucceul, ince it introduction in the market, why

it i till in ue nowaday, a well a, what it limit are.


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oday the mot wideread oerating ytem are baed on

a dekto metahor. Te oce-dekto viual metahor i ocommon or mot o the comuter uer that it aear to be the

obviou way o interacting with them. Ti chater illutrate

the reaon why Xerox PARC reearcher decided to introduce

thi metahor, a long a, it trength and weaknee.

2.1 Why a desktop metaphor

outlined in the reviou chater, the dekto metahor wa

introduced or the rt time in Xerox tar interace.1 Te tar wa

the rt comuter meant or an audience o oce worker. t that

time comuter were mainly ued or reearch, a lot o techni-

cal knowledge wa required to interact with them. n an oce

environment, comuter were ued or roductivity tak uch a

buine reort and reentation. er were buinemen and

ecretarie without any kill in comuter cience but intereted inuing the owerul digital tool to accomlih their tak ater and

better. (Johnon et al. 1999, David urbo, viewed 29 ril 2008,

)

1 . aragrah 1.2

2 The Desktop Metaphor


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im ott came out with the idea o uing metahorical

icon to comare comuter object with oce element.

(oggridge 2007) He rereented comuter le and directoriewith grahical icon o older and aer document; the o-

ibility o deleting le and retrieving them wa rereented a a

trah can, comuter window were tackable a heet o aer

and they could be unrolled a croll o ayru. Te comuter

dekto, a a real dekto, wa the main working ace where to

arrange working document.

Te idea wa ucceul. Te metahor ued wa erectly

uitable or eole aroaching comuter or the rt timein an oce environment. Te grahical interace enabled u-

er to erorm common tak jut ointing and clicking on

viual icon. Ti wa a great imrovement comared to ty-

ing textual command. oreover, the dekto metahor o-

cu on document editing. ther ytem, even i uing GUI,

were baed on a tool metahor.1 Te uer had to invoke an

alication, the tool, and then eciy which le to edit withit. (Johnon et al. 1999, David urbo, viewed 29 ril 2008,

)

2.2 riticisms to the desktop metaphor

oday comuter can tore thouand o multimedia le and

acce an innite amount o inormation on the nternet. Te

dekto ha become jut a tiny viual ace where ew le canbe tored, all the other document have to be recalled remember-

ing the textual categorie o a vat older/ub-older tructure

1 ytem uch a alltalk-80, edar, and variou i environment. (Johnonet al. 1999, David urbo, viewed 29 ril 2008, )


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or tying the exact le name (Johnon 1997, .78-79).1 ot o

the benet o uing a grahical interace have diaeared and

there i a tendency to go back to textual interace.

2

nother roblem i that today comuter are ued by dier-

ent categorie o eole, not only by oce worker. For examle,

ordell atzla3 (cited in oggridge 2007, .149) oint out

that today children begin uing comuter at a very early age.

etahor uch a older or le cabinet make no ene or

them, ince they rt exerience thoe concet on the creen

and only in a econd time in the real world.

any CI (Human-omuter nteraction) reearcher argue

that the dekto metahor i not a good model or interace de-

ign. ot o them believe that any tye o metahor hould be

avoided.

ed Nelon4 (1990) tate that the dekto metahor i totally

unucceul. He argue that Te alternative to metahoric ithe contruction o well-thought-out uniying idea, embodied

in richer grahic exreion that are not chained to illy com-

arion. (Nelon 1990, .237)

Brenda aurel (1993), intead, oint out that metahor are

ueul when there i a correonding behaviour between the two

ole, but they become roblematic when the interace doe not

1 ome ofware allow ull-text earch on document but mot o the le havea the only reerence the le name.2 extual earch engine, uch a oogle earch or le otlight, are widelyued to retrieve inormation both on line and on local hard dik.3 ordell atzla i the manager o Human nterace rou at le.4 ed Nelon i an merican ociologit, hilooher, and ioneer o inorma-tion technology.


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how what uer uually nd in the reerring domain. n a imi-

lar way roblem arie when omething in the interace work

in an unexected way according to the metahor. Te ue o thetrah can to eject dik can be an examle.1

Jenny reece2 (reece et al. 1994) make a ditinction between

verbal metahor and interace metahor. hile verbal meta-

hor invite eole to comare imilaritie and dierence be-

tween the ytem and the amiliar domain, interace metahor

conue the two art and the metahor become the interace.

Verbal metahor can be a tarting oint to learn a new ytem,

develoing a good mental model o it. ntead, interace meta-hor become the learned model and the tructural aect o

the ytem remain unaware.

ccording to Norman (1998) metahor are alway wrong.

Te only excetion to thi i when the roertie o the metahor

ource domain and the unamiliar target are cloely related. n

a imilar way to reece, Norman argue that metahor can be

ueul in the early tage o learning, but later on revent uerrom building a correct mental model o the ytem. Te olution,

according to Norman (1998), i uing a clear concetual model.

concetual model i dened a a tory that ut together the

behaviour and aearance o a device in a enible, comrehen-

ible attern (Norman 1998, .177). good concetual model al-

low eole to undertand the dierent control and alternative

action taken without knowing how the ytem really work.

ooer (2003) ugget to relace the ue o metahor withidiomatic interace, a he call them. diomatic uer interace

are baed on the ue o non-metahorical viual and behavioural

1 . aragrah 2.42 Jenny reece i an online community reearcher and roeor and Dean atthe ollege o normation tudie, . o aryland.


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idiom to accomlih goal and tak. hile metahor are

baed on uer intuition, idiomatic interace have to be learnt.

ooer thought (2003, .250) i baed on the evidence that idi-omatic exreion uch a beat around the buh or cool make

ene only i eole have been taught them. t eem that human

mind ha an attitude in undertanding and remembering a huge

quantity o idiom. ccording to ooer (2003) idiom are al-

ready ued in today interace, actually mot o the intuitive ele-

ment in GUI are viual idiom. Te way window, dro-down

menu and mice work i not baed on real-world metahor but

it i learnt idiomatically.ooer (2003) argue that the ucce o the acintoh in-

terace doe not derive rom the ue o the dekto metahor

but rom everal other reaon a the eay to ue moue driven

interace, the oibility o viually maniulate object in a

WSIWG (hat You ee hat You et) way or the high reo-

lution dilay that allowed reliable review o rinted outut.

ing ooer idiomatic interace concet it i oible toexlain why eole who are not amiliar with real-oce tool,

a children, are able to eaily ue a dekto interace. Tey learn

the way tool work in an idiomatic way, without intuiting the

connection with the hyical world.

elernter (2000) ugget to abandon current oerating y-

tem baed on older, named le and textual earch engine.

odern comuting i baed on an analogy between comuterand le cabinet that i undamentally wrong and aect nearly

every move we make. (e tore le on dik, write record,

organize le into older le-cabinet language.) omuter

are undamentally unlike le cabinet becaue they can take

action.


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Fig.5 Lifestreams screenshot. Experimental interface based on a stream of documents

organized in chronological order.


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etahor have a roound eect on comuting: the le-cabinet

metahor tra u in a aive intead o active view o inor-

mation management that i undamentally wrong or comuter.

Following Nelon thought, Freeman and elernter (2007, .23)

tate that, intead o uing metahor, interace have to be built

around imle uniying idea, leading to new organizing trate-

gie. n 1994, Freeman and elernter deigned itram, an

exerimental interace baed on a tream o document orga-

nized in chronological order with eay to ue tool to earch and

organize inormation. (Fig.5) (Freeman & elernter 2007, .20) the two author oint out, exlaining the data tructure o

their interace, a lietream i a time-ordered tream o docu-

ment that unction a a diary o your electronic lie. (bid., .26)

Freeman and elernter reue the ue o metahor in interace

deign, but they ue a diary metahor to exlain how their y-

tem work. Te oint i that ietream i baed on very general

metahor that do not tra the deign in obolete concet.

Drawing a concluion, many CI reearcher warn about the

rik o uing metahor in interace deign, but, a ako and

Johnon (1980) oint out, metahor are undamental tool in

human mental rocee. ctually mot o human concetual

ytem are baed on metahor. ako and Johnon (1980), or

intance, ue the examle o the concetual metahor argument

i war. Exreion uch a win an argument or attack weak

oint are not only linguitic idiom but are evidence that eo-le think about argument a war rom a concetual oint o

view. other metahoric exreion were ued when reerring

to argument, uch a argument i a dance, the mental model o

argument would be dierently haed by the metahor. ako

and Johnon (1980) argue that mot o the mental concet are


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undertood in a metahorical way; the only concet that are

undertood without the mediation o metahor are the one

baed on the atial exerience related to the human body. oto the other concet derive rom that hyicality. For examle,

ocial tatu i dened in term o high tatu (u) and low ta-

tu (down); haine, health and well-being are dened a high

while the contrary i low (high quality work, thing are at an all

time low). (ako & Johnon, .16)

n interace deign, metahor can be ucceully ued to

develo a vocabulary to eak about abtract concet in a com-

ortable way but, a ooer (2003) ugget, it i imortant toavoid bending the interace to t a metahor, or uing Johnon

word relace the good aith o uer riendly metahor with

the hyteria o total imulation. (Johnon 1997, .60)

For examle, in on-line hoing context, the hoing cart

metahor i well uited to reer to the virtual lace where it i

oible to review the lit o item a uer i intereted in buying.

Te on-line hoing cart, a the real trolley, i the lace whereuer ut their good in beore aying them. t i eay or eole

with reviou exerience o hoing mall, to undertand what

roertie the virtual cart ha in common with real world cart.

ually, in e-commerce web ite there i no viual reerence to

hoing mall or real trolley. ing the word hoing cart i

enough to get the idea: uer will jut ee a age with the lit o all

the elected item where it i oible to check the due amount

o money, taking omething o and checking out. n a imilarway, it i eay or uer to undertand that clicking on the button

add to cart in a roduct age will add the roduct to the lit o

choen roduct.


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2.3 Magic up and Microsof Bob

o uort the theorie illutrated above, two examle o howmetahor can be ued in an extremely negative way are re-

ented. agic u and icroof Bob were two commercial

interace deigned in mid 1990, with the aim to exand and

enrich the dekto metahor. agic u wa an interace or

handheld digital aitant introduced in 1994. agic u wa

baed on an extended oce metahor, every aect o the in-

terace wa rereented by it hyical counterart creating a

imulation rather than a ueul interace. (Fig.6) Tat ue o aervaive metahor revented uer rom beneting the ower

o comuter veratility, remaining attached to hyical world

contraint. eaking about agic u, ooer (2003, .253)

exlain:

t may eem clever to rereent your dial-u ervice with a ic-

ture o a telehone itting on a dek, but it actually imrion youin a limited deign. Te original maker o the telehone would

have been ectatic i they could have created a hone that let you

call your riend jut by ointing to icture o them.

n 1995 icroof introduced Bob, an interace baed on a liv-

ing room metahor drawn with a cartoon tyle. (Fig.7) Bob wa

meant or neohyte but, a Johnon (1999) oint out, Bob wa

much like a imulation, rather than a roductive interace: in-tead o highlighting the otential and ower o comuter it wa

hooked to hyical limit. omuter novice, more than other,

hould be guided in undertanding the dierence o comuter

tool rom their hyical counterart. (Johnon 1999, .61)


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Fig.7 Microsoft Bob screenshot. Interface based on a living room metaphor

rendered with a cartoon style.

Fig.6 Magic Cup screenshot. Magic Cup was based on an extended ofce

metaphor, every aspect of the interface was represented by its physical

counterpart.


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agic u and icroof Bob reulted totally unucceul.

hen uing metahor it i imortant to maintain a good balance

between real world reemblance and abtraction; in thi reectmaintream dekto interace can be conidered ucceul.

2.4 Why is the desktop metaphor still in use?

wa reented in the reviou aragrah many alternative

to the dekto metahor were theorized, in the next chater will

be illutrated ome exiting alternative to the claical dekto

interace. robably, none o them can be een a a denitive olu-tion to uer interace deign but they try to olve ome o the

concetual roblem and ractical lack that current dekto

interace reent.

the dekto metahor and WIMP interace are not good

or uer need and ome alternative to them already exit, why

then are they till in ue?

hanging omething that work i alway roblematic evenin a lively eld a technology. Te ocial cientit Herbert imon

(cited in idwell 2005, .12) dened the behaviour o eole in

ocial and economic ituation a aticing. Te word come

rom the union oatiyingand ucing. t exlain how eole

reer to maintain what they already have, i they conider it to

be good enough or their need and their alternative have a

high cot in term o time and eort. Ti behaviour i valid alo

when reerring to interace. ne o the rt rule in interacedeign i maintaining conitency with convention and tan-

dard. (idwell 2005) good examle o thi trend i the trah

icon to eject dik on ac OS. n acintoh oerating ytem to

eject an external dik uer have to drag it icon on the trah can


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icon, the ame icon ued to delete le.1 Tat counter-intuitive

behaviour ha a hitorical reaon: the very rt acintoh had

no hard dik and only a oy dik drive. t that time, the trahcan wa ued to delete the icon o a reviouly inerted dikette

rom the dekto. rogrammer thought that ejecting the di-

kette wa a deired tak or uer who deleted the dik icon rom

the dekto. Tat behaviour aimed at making thing eaier or

the average uer, ollowing le hiloohy. Te convention

o uing the trah can icon to eject dik ha been lef unchanged

in the ollowing releae o ac OS and it i till in ue nowaday.

(Erickon, reativity and Deign, in aurel 1990, .2)Dierently, akin acribe interace inertia more to indu-

trie rather than to uer behaviour: (Je akin 2005,J akin

b it, viewed 9 ctober 2008, )

Normal human inertia make it dicult to eect weeing

change, even when the need or them i clear. t i widely rec-ognized by uer and commentator that reent-day interace

and their uorting ofware ytem are not atiactory, yet to

many eole inide the indutry the need to revie our reent

interace rotocol doe not eem reing.

Deigning a brand new interace require a huge eort in term

o rogramming and uer teting. Furthermore, new ofwareand comuter ytem are meant or eole with a reviouexerience with comuter. Ti audience i thought to reer

already known interace.

1 n ac OS when a dic i dragged the trah icon become an arrow toavoid the ambiguity between deleting and ejecting, but thi behaviour till hano conitency.


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n the lat year, hint o a witch in the aradigm can be een in

interace deign. Te increaing availability o ubiquitou digital

device and the growing imortance o networking and ocialcomuting, are determining ome imortant change in the way

comuter are intended by uer and more veratile interace

are required. n the next chater ome oible alternative to the

dekto metahor are reented, mot o them reult not good

enough to exceed the aticingattitude but other are emerging

a valid alternative to the dekto interace.


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35


n the reviou chater the limit o dekto interace were

ointed out, now ome alternative interace are reented. Firtare illutrated ome examle o interace that are not uerior

enough to comletely relace the actual dekto aradigm. Ten

Zooming nterace aradigm (IP) i exlored a an alternative

that i lowly gaining ground in uer interace.

3.1 roject - HotSauce

During the lat decade, le and icroof tarted looking at

innovative way o navigating inormation tored in comuter

to relace the claical dekto-older interace.

roject X, alo known a Hotauce, i a three dimenional le

management interace with a acehi-videogame tyle realized

at le in the mid-1990. (Fig.8) Folder and le were reented

a lane oating in a three-dimenional virtual ace. licking

on a older, intead o oening a window with the correondingcontent, caued the whole creen to zoom-in, revealing le a a

grou o atellite urrounding their lanet. (Johnon 1997, .80)

n Hotauce it wa alo oible to navigate the le ytem mov-

ing reely around the three-dimenional ace. Johnon (1997)

oint out, Hotauce gave the idea o really navigating comuter

3 Alternatives to the desktop metaphor


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Fig.8 HotSauce screenshot. In HotSauce it was also possible to navigate the le system

moving freely around the three-dimensional space.


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data a a virtual ace, uer could remember le tructure,

thank to their atial oition intead o remembering older

name or keyword a eole ue to do in common GUI. Temain roblem in Hotauce wa the diculty in moving around

in a three-dimenional ace. ended u thinking more about

how to teer the device than about the data wa looking or.

(Johnon 1997, .80) roject Hotauce develoment toed in

1997.

3.2 ask Gallery

n 1999 icroof tarted working on a three-dimenional in-

terace rototye named ak allery. ak allery i baed on

an art gallery metahor. Te uer can move in a linear three-

dimenional hallway. ak1 are arranged on the wall o the

gallery. Te current tak i dilayed on a tage in the ront

wall, while requently ued document can be recalled rom a

tart alette where document are rereented by their actualcontent, intead o icon. (oberton et al. 2001) imilarly to

Hotauce, ak allery i baed on the ue o atial memory

to eaily retrieve document. Dierently rom le rototye,

the akallery ue a linear hallway to avoid uer getting lot

in the three-dimenional ace. (Video 4)

ccording to oberton (oberton et al. 2001) uer tudie

demontrated that eole ound ak allery eay to ue in navi-

gating the ace, nding tak and witching between them. Eveni uing a metahorical viual language, the ak allery allow

a at and roductive interaction without uering the roblem

1 tak i a grou o rogram window ued in a ingle job.


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Video 4 Task Gallery is an interface based on an art gallery metaphor. Point the mobile

phone on the symbol below to watch the video.


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o agic u and icroof Bob.1 However, u until today, ak

allery ha never been imlemented in any icroof oerating

ytem or releaed a a commercial roduct. (icroof eearch2005,icroo, viewed 9 ctober 2008, )

3.3 ther interaces based on three-dimensional graphic

Both le Hotauce and icroof ak allery are three di-

menional interace. any o the interace that try to relace

or imrove the dekto metahor are baed on a heavy ue o 3grahic. For examle, actile 32 i a le navigation ytem that

dilay older and le in a videogame tyle three-dimenional

virtual ace. Folder are rereented a here, to acce le

uer have to get inide the correonding here. nide they

will nd claical icon arranged in 3. actile 3 reent the

ame uability roblem o le Hotauce. t can be een more

a a unny way to exlore the le ytem, rather than a real ro-ductive alternative.(Video 5)

n a imilar way, 3A Dekto3 i an alication that eature

cutomizable three-dimenional environment to relace the

dekto. Te uer navigate in imaginary videogame-like lace

with a rt-eron oint o view (Doom tyle) where it i oi-

ble to inert hortcut to alication and document. 3A doe

not allow to viually navigate the le ytem and it older truc-

ture, 3A turn to be more a game, rather than an alication.

1 . aragrah 2.32 actile 3 i a commercial ofware releaed by er Bound nteractive in2005 htt://www.tactile3d.com3 3A Dekto i a commercial ofware releaed by 3A cor. in 2003htt://www.3dna.net


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Video 5 Tactile 3D is a les navigation system that displays folders and les in a 3D

virtual space. Point the mobile phone on the symbol below to watch the video.


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(raham N. 2004, Zi Davi ublihing Holding, viewed 29

ril 2008, )n roject ooking la the aearance o window and

dekto environment remain unaltered however, window can

be rotated in all direction, allowing thu to ue the back o each

window to take note and to ue their ide to read it title when

the window i rotated.1 (Fig.9-10) (roject ooking la 2005,

un icroytm, Inc., viewed 8 ugut 2008, )

Bumo i a three-dimenional dekto interace that uehyical imulation. Folder and lling cabinet metahor are

relaced by iling. con and window in Bumo are three

dimenional object that can be iled to allow a greater number

o viible object on the dekto. (Video 6) Virtual ile hould

allow to eaily remember where an object i, a it haen

with real world ile. (garawala . & Balakrihnan ., 2006,

Keein it eal: uhing the Dekto etahor with hyic,ile and the en, rocding o HI 2006 - th onrnc

on Human Factor in omputing ytm,viewed 8 ugut 2008,

)

ll o the above mentioned examle are baed on a heavy

ue o three dimenional grahic. Tey tart rom the aum-

tion that a three-dimenional interace i more owerul and

more natural than a two-dimenional one, becaue it better re-

emble the real world. egarding the ue o three-dimenionalinterace, Jacob Nielen (1999) argue that deite general

thought, navigating in a three-dimenional ace i unnatural

1 roject ooking la i a three dimenional dekto that can be ued oninux and indow. Te roject tarted in 2004 and i onored by unicroytem.


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Fig 9-10 Project Looking Glass screenshots. In Project Looking

Glass Windows can be rotated in 3D. Windows sides allow to

read title while the back of each window can be used to take

notes.


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or human, eecially i they oat in a ree ace. oving on a

urace i much eaier than in a volume.1 (Nielen 1999, .222) o

get oriented in real-world, eole alway ue bidimenional aid;or examle, ma and ign are ued when going around in a

unknown city or mueum.

lo Norman (1998) i cetical about the ue o three-

dimenional virtual ace a a olution to interace roblem.

He oint out that uually three-dimenional interace u-

orter conue viion with ace and they overetimate eole

atial abilitie: (Norman 1998, .101)

e are retty good at remembering hyical location. But good

i not erect. nd there are huge individual dierence; what i

eay or ome i dicult or other.

Te real roblem, however, i that what many technologit eem

to rooe a the olution i not true atial rereentation. hat

mot technologit eem to want to do i reent a icture o a

three-dimenional world on the creen, letting u move the ic-ture around o that the cene that are viible are the one we

would ee i we were moving inide the ace. But there i no

movement; the viual world move, but we ourelve tand till.

Tat i not at all the ame a the real ituation in which the world

tay till and it i we who move. Ti i conuing viual image

with atiality.

ome o the main imediment when navigating in three dimen-

ion are the occluion o inormation, due to overlaing and

1 Te author reer to web interace, but hi argument can be alied tocomuter interace in general.


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Video 6 Bumptop is a three-dimensional desktop interface based on piling and physical

simulation. Point the mobile phone on the symbol below to watch the video.


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the dicultie in recognizing ditant object. Te third dimen-

ion can be valuable only i ued in a reaonable way.

3.4 Zooming interaces

zooming interace i a grahical uer interace where all the in-

ormation i laid out on a ingle giant lane and it can be acceed

zooming and anning on the lane urace. n a zooming inter-

ace there are no window, icon or older. ll the document

and their content can be acceed zooming. Zooming interace

relay on human atial abilitie, eole can eaily remember ob-ject oition thank to atial reerence. atialization i one

o the ew univeral concet. (ako & Johnon 1980) t come

rom the atial exerience o living in the hyical world com-

mon to all human. ot o the other concet are undertood

through atial metahor. (ako & Johnon 1980, .56) n cur-

rent interace, the dekto can be ued to arrange document

in a viual ace, a well, but, due to it mall dimenion, moto the document have to be recalled rom menu or hierarchi-

cal older tructure.1 n zooming interace an innite lane

allow to arrange all o the document in a viual way while the

zooming tool allow to eaily a rom a very wide overview to

detailed inormation.

ad++

Te rt imlementation o zooming interace i ad++,2 an inter-

ace ramework that rovide tool or navigating and editing data

1 . aragrah 2.22 ad++ i a roject develoed at New York niverity and niverity o Newexico in 1990.


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in a zoomable environment. (Bederon B. et al. 1994, ad++:

Zoomable rahical ketchad For Exloring lternate nterace

hyic, ympoium on Ur Intrac oar and chnology,)

Te navigation interace allow mooth zooming and anning

on the urace. o comare hyically ditant data in the ame

creen, ad++ introduce the concet o ortal. ortal i an

item that rovide a view o an area or a urace dierent rom

the current one. ortal alo allow to change the way object are

reented and to lter data. emantic zooming change the way

object aear, deending on the zoom level: intead o howinga caled verion o the object, a dierent rereentation i di-

layed. For examle, a digital clock can how hour and minute

at it normal ize; zooming-in, intead o dilaying a bigger text

ize, can add econd and date while, when zooming-out, it can

how only hour at a readable ize. (bid.) extual earche are

linked to the viual interace through animation howing the

ath rom the actual view to the lace where the earched ele-ment i. ad++ author oint out that their aim i to relace old

interace concet, baed on mimicking reality, with an interace

baed on imulation o hyic behaviour but ree rom meta-

hor. Ti way o thinking led the author to ue a real world

inired zoom mechanim uing behavior, uch a emantic

zooming, that move away rom hyical reemblance. Even

i ad++ ue metahor to exlain it interace element, the

metahor ued are detached rom a hyical reality, allowing anhigher level o abtraction and better exloiting the otential o

digital tool.


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Zoomorld

Je akin

1

contributed a lot to zooming interace. Te author(akin, 2000) decribe actual comuter interace with window,

menu, icon a maze made o little room with door that do not

give clear cue about where they lead. akin (2000) identie the

olution in an interace where it i oible to ee all the data

and the ath leading rom a lace to another. Te author (bid.)

decribe the Zooming nterace aradigm (IP) a the oibility

to y over the maze allowing a clear overview. akin interace

i named Zoomorld and it i baed on a innite lane o inor-mation where everything needed i dilayed, whether it i on

the local dik or on a network. Zooming i like ying high or div-

ing down to ee detail. n Zoomorld there i no need or icon,

document are already oen on the innite lane. o acce their

content, uer only need to zoom in. n Zoomorld there are

no imoed tructure or organizing le. akin (2000, .154)

ugget uing ize dierence to create hierarchie; imortantinormation can be bigger in ize and le imortant inormation

maller. lo, link can be releaced by zooming; or examle, a

ootnote, can dilay the entire reerenced work at a very mall

ize, intead o reorting a link to the ource. o comare ditant

document, Zoomorld eature litcreen with indeendent

control in a imilar way to ad++ ortal. (Video 7)

akin realized a Zoomorld alication to comuterize abig ized medical chart ued in hoital intenive care unit

(ICU) (akin 2000, .157). Hoital are articularly good te-

tbed or inormation technology ytem; due to the critical

1 Je akin i one o the deigner who tarted the le acintoh roject.


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Video 7 Raskins Zooming User Interface demo. Point the mobile phone on the symbol

below to watch the video.


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ituation, inormation acce ha to be reliable, at and veratile.1

Zoomorld i ued to rovide all the inormation o the ICU chart

and alo to give acce to dierent tye o data on the enterriedatabae. Te zooming interace allow to eaily a rom a very

detailed level o inormation, detail about a ingle atient, to

the oor level, where room inormation i layed reembling the

actual oor ma. Zooming out urther give acce to the ma

o all the hoital network, zooming on another building allow

to acce inormation o other hoital. ithin the ame inter-

ace, zooming out urther give acce to the orld ide eb.

During uer tudie, all the other digital interace teted rovedto have a lower interaction than aer and needed exceive

training, while Zoomorld roved that nure where able to ue

the ytem afer jut one minute o training, taking advantage o

all the benet o the digital interace. (akin 2000)

Zoomabl map intrac

n the examle above a zooming interace i alied to a big

creen context, but zooming interace aradigm i veratile

enough to be ucceully adoted in dierent ize device.

ome examle how how zooming interace work ne in tan-

dard environment or with mall creen device. For examle

zooming interace ha become the tandard or navigating digi-

tal ma. ofware uch a oogle a demontrate how high

reolution atellite image can be exlored in an eay and atway, thank to the zoom and an interace. uch interace make

million o treet and landmark acceible in ew econd. t i

1 . Bardam J. 2007 From Dktop anagmnt to Ubiquitou ctivity-adomputing.


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Video 8 Thanks to its multi-touch screen technology, Iphone makes zooming and panning

operations very easy. Point the mobile phone on the symbol below to watch the video.


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eay to imagine how dicult to exlore ma uing a tandard

window and older interace would be: ma would be hidden

in a hierarchical tructure made o older and ubolder rere-enting continent, countrie, citie and treet.

Iphon

le hone, even i it doe not ue the zooming interace

aradigm, can give an idea o how zooming interace could be

eectively imlemented on mobile device. Tank to it multi-

touch creen technology, hone make zooming and anningoeration very eay. hone give the oibility to exlore geo-

grahical ma, icture gallerie, web age in a very eay way,

thank to it zooming unction. o zoom a ma or a icture

uer jut re the creen with two nger and read them ar-

ther aart or cloer together. o an uer touch the creen and

drag one nger on the urace: the dilayed content will move

accordingly. le hone oerating ytem doe not ollow therincile o zooming interace: creen lide in and out a

they were on an innite lane, but there i no conitency in the

abolute oition o creen and it i not oible to zoom out to

have an overview o the entire ytem. (Video 8)

Jf Han ulti-ouch Intraction arch

n examle o how zooming interace can be ued in big creendevice come rom Je Hanulti-ouch Intraction arch.

(Han J 2006,ulti-ouch Intraction arch, viewed 11 augut

2008, ) Han demon-

trated, on a 1 meter large dilay, how imle and natural navi-

gating a ma or browing icture i with a zooming interace


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Video 9 Jeff Hans Interface is an example of zooming interface on a big screen. Point

the mobile phone on the symbol below to watch the video.


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on a multi-touch creen, uing hand geture to an and zoom.

Han interaction cheme i very imilar to the hone, that dem-

ontrate how zooming interace can be ucceully alied intool o dierent ize maintaining conitency.1(Video 9)

oncluion

Te ew examle reented demontrate how zooming in-

terace can be adoted in device o dierent ize, allowing

greater conitency between tool that are becoming more and

more interconnected in everyday lie. Zooming interace can bethe anwer to need that dekto interace cannot atiy, uch

a eaily toring and retrieving thouand o document uing

more wideread metahor.

urrent oerating ytem reent ome eature that can be

een a little te toward zooming interace direction. ome

ytem, or intance, give the oibility to witch betweenmultile dekto,2 where to tore more document in a viual

way, while xpo arrange all the oen window in a ingle view,

caling them down creating a zoom-out eect.3

From a hardware oint o view, tandard mice with a croll-

wheel are good device to interact with zooming interace,

but new inut device are emerging. ome lato comuter

imlement multi-touch caabilitie on the touchad,4 allowing

1 Je Han ulti-ouch Intraction arch wa reented one year beorele hone.2 Te oibility to have multile dekto i available on nix and inuxince 1980, it wa imlemented a a tandard eature o ac OS in 2007.3 Exo i a eature o ac OS .4 oday only acBook lato and u eee PC


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interaction caabilitie imilar to hone. Ti trend could bring

to an increaing ue o zooming interace.

OLPC cae tudy i the ubject o the next chater. OLPC i a

roject reenting a brand new interace or a lato, giving u

the dekto metahor. Due to the unuual context,1 more wide-

read atial metahor are ued, including a zooming meta-

hor rendered in a comletely dierent way rom what een in

thi chater.

1 OLPC roject i addreed at children without any knowledge o comuting.


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4.1 Te ne aptop er hild project

Te ne ato er hild (OLPC) i a non-rot organization

ounded by roeor Nichola Negroonte in 2005. (n

aptop r hild Viion n.d., n aptop r hild, ambridge,

viewed 8 ctober 2008, )

Te aim o the OLPC roject i to ll the ocio-economic ga

o develoing countrie thank to the hel o inormation and

communication technologie. OLPC hort term objective i torovide one eronal lato to any child a a learning reource.

OLPC lato uer interace wa deigned rom cratch by the

roject team.1 Develoer took the bold deciion to avoid the

ue o the dekto metahor. it wa ointed out,2 the dek-

to metahor i not uitable or eole not working in a oce.

1 n thi diertation it i taken into account the original lato interace(named ugar) deigned by the OLPC team and baed on inux, however OLPClato can run indow P a well. (Barak . and aia F. 2008, ru lurchildrn into th orld o indo, T nquirr ondon, viewed 8 ctober2008, ).2 . aragrah 2.2

4 One Laptop per Child case study


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Fig.11 Children in Nepal using XO laptops.


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oreover, OLPC lato uer are children without any knowledge

o comuting, they cannot take advantage rom the metahor

nor rom reviou exerience with comuter. Tee reaonmake the OLPC roject an ideal ituation where exerimenting

dierent interace olution without taking into account eole

aticing behaviour.1 (Fig.11)

ne ato er hild concet i baed on the theorie o

contructionim elaborated in the 1960 by eymour aert.

ontructionit learning i baed on the rincile that learning

i an active roce. earner build mental model and theorie

o the world around them. aert think that comuter are ar-ticularly uitable or learning math and logic when uing ro-

gramming environment devoted to education, uch a LOGO.

(Harel & aert 1991)

n Negroonte viion, a lato comuter, eecially de-

igned or children, give them the oortunity to acce learn-

ing reource and inormation on the nternet, to develo their

own creativity, roblem olving otential and to become art oa worldwide community o eer. (n aptop r hild iion

n.d., n aptop r hild, ambridge, viewed 8 ctober 2008,

)

Te choice o lato comuter, intead o chool baed

comuter, come rom the idea that the comuter will be a

relacement or book nowaday too exenive or develoing

countrie nancial oibilitie. lato can be brought home,

thu becoming a reource or amilie. oreover it can becomethe only educational oortunity or children that have any o-

ibility to attend chool. (Video 10)

1 . aragrah 2.4


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Video 10 Nicholas Negroponte speaks about One Laptop per Child on CBS program 60

minutes. Point the mobile phone on the symbol below to watch the video.


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4.2 OLPC laptop design

Develoing the OLPC lato wa a huge deign challenge. Telato need to be trong and ae enough to be uitable or the

target uer (6 to 16 year old children); it ha to be water roo

and dut reitant to be ued in extreme condition; it alo ha to

be eay to ue, to require low maintenance and to work in lace

where electric energy i not a common acility. lot o attention

wa alo ut in communication caabilitie, the oibility o

connecting to the nternet, or to a local area network where no

nternet connection i available. Tu wa one o the rioritie.nother undamental iue wa the rice. Te OLPC comuter

ha to be chea enough to allow develoing countrie govern-

ment to aord buying a comuter or any child. Te roject i

alo known a the $100 lato.1

Due to it eculiarity, the overall deign o the OLPC lato will

be now illutrated, while the next aragrah will deal with in-novation in uer interace deign.

Te look o the cae i very layul. Te lato i white with a

green rame, on the to cover there i a coloured logo rereent-

ing a joyul child tylized a a big X rereenting a child body

with oen arm and a mall o a head. From that logo derive

the name o the machine, called the O lato.

O ha a big handle integrated in it mould to be carried ea-

ily without any bag. nother very remarkable art o the caei rereented by the two WI-I antenna that come out a ear.

1 Te current rice o the lato i higher than $100 but, according toNegroonte, the rice hould lower to $100. (n aptop r hildn.d., ne

ato er hild, Cambridge, viewed 8 October 2008, )


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Video 11 David Pogue reviews XO laptop. Point the mobile phone on the symbol below

to watch the video.


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Te choice o a very recognizable and layul aearance ha two

goal: to aeal to children that have to exerience the lato a

an engaging learning tool and to dicourage imroer uage areelling them through the grey market. (n aptop r hild

Fatur n.d., n aptop r hild, ambridge, viewed 8 ctober

2008, )

Te creen i a dual-mode 7.5 inche LC. t can be ued in

tandard colour mode or in high reolution (200 di) mono-

chrome mode. Te econd modality eature high contrat to

allow readability under unlight and low ower conumtion. t

alo reerve actual content when the lato i turned o. Teointing device i a wide touchad that can be ued with nger

or with a en to draw. Te O eature multimedia caabilitie,

thank to tereo eaker, an integrated microhone and a web-

cam. (Video 11)

4.3 XO user interace

uch attention wa alo ut in uer interace deign. tarting

rom the aumtion that target uer are children rom develo-

ing countrie, it eemed o no benet or develoer to ue meta-

hor uch a oce and dekto and any reerence to exiting

oerating ytem eemed o any hel. Te OLPC ofware deign

team took the hard deciion to deign a brand new uer inter-

ace; ome o the etablihed comuter concet were changed

in order to be more undertandable or the target audience. Teconcet ooar application wa relaced byactivityto ocu

on children exreion and collaboration; every activity take

advantage o the eer-to-eer meh network that connect O

to each other. Te exchange o idea between eer i een a the

bet way to obtain engagement and to timulate critical thinking.


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ccording to contructionit learning theorie, every child ha to

be conidered a a learner and a teacher at the ame time. (n

aptop r hild iion n.d., n aptop r hild, ambridge,viewed 8 ctober 2008, )

Te concet ol i relaced by the one oobjct: everyactiv-

ity done by the uer roduce objct. n object creation real-

world metahor are ued; a txt l become a tory, agraphic

l a draing, an audio l an actual ound. Te object in le-

ytem are organized uing a journal metahor. Te concet o

journal a a written record o daily activitie eem to be gener-

ally undertood by dierent culture. ( Human IntracGuidlin 2008, n aptop r hild, viewed 8 ctober 2008,

) Te leytem record all the activitie the child ha

done, a well a, the one he took art in with other children. Te

object are organized in a chronological way. bject can alo

be arranged and earched uing keyword, but OLPC deigner

argue that chronological order i the mot natural way to earchthrough object. Te leytem tructure ha to be een a a ort-

olio or the crabook hitory o child interaction with lato

and with riend. ( Human Intrac Guidlin 2008, n

aptop r hild, viewed 8 ctober 2008, )

ince the lato i intended or young uer with no revi-

ou exerience with comuter and normation echnologie,

develoer had more reedom in exloring new concet andmetahor. Te drawback i the lack o a common cultural back-

ground uually adoted in interace deign.

Te O ha to trancend a broad range o culture and

language. O develoer were conciou that mot o the

concet and metahor ued in interace are amiliar only


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in wetern countrie. For examle, rom the wetern culture

oint o view, uing a hoto camera icon could eem the bet

way to label the camera unction o the lato. However con-idering that mot o the children that ue the O lato have

never ued or een a hoto camera, that label will be meaning-

le to them. etahor reerring to human body are univeral

(ako & Johnon 1980) o, they better accomlih their role

in OLPC context. Te webcam can be decribed a the lato eye

and an eye icon can be ued to label it. ( Human Intrac

Guidlin 2008, n aptop r hild, viewed 8 ctober 2008,

Te O low rice goal determined lower comuting eed

comared to tandard lato. nly a limited number o activi-

tie can run at the ame time, thi detail i exoed to uer in

a direct way. unning activitie are rereented by their icon

inide a ring, the ize o the ring egment each activity occuie

rereent memory uage. Ti allow children to build a correct

mental model o how the machine work, what activitie can beoened and how to act when there i no more ace to oen new

activitie.

nother deciion taken to revent eed roblem i the re-

moval o multi-taking and tackable window. ctivitie take all

creen ace. t i not oible to dilay more than one activity at

the ame time. ther then a technical iue thi limitation come

rom the deciion to ocu uer eort on one tak only to avoid

ditraction in children. ( Human Intrac Guidlin 2008,n aptop r hild, viewed 8 ctober 2008, ambridge )

reviouly aid, the dekto metahor wa totally di-

carded by O interace deigner. O main uer interace i made

o our view, bound together by a zoom metahor. Te our


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Fig.12 XO GUI home view screenshot with the activity ring.


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view rereent children environment rom the current activity

running on the lato to the whole network. Te 4 level are

named Hom, Group, ighbourhood, andctivity.Te rt level i the Home creen. Te Home creen eature

an O icon rereenting the child, whom the lato belong to,

at the centre o the creen. Te colour o the icon are choen by

the lato owner and are the ame colour ued to rereent the

lato on the network. Te character i urrounded by the activ-

ity ring. Te home view i ued to tart, end or witch between

activitie. (Fig. 12)

Te rou view i at an outer level o zoom rom the Homeview. t i ued to ee grou o riend, clamate or other

grou the uer belong to. Te network i rereented a the

grou o children connected to it. hildren are rereented by a

coloured O icon, dierent colour are ued to identiy dierent

children. hildren icon can be atially rearranged to create

logical cluter. Te cla grou i automatically created, baed

on the children attending the ame cla. hildren have the o-ibility to reely create other grou. eole in a grou hare a

bulletin board, a chat and grou activitie. n rou view it i

alo oible to ee what activity other children are currently

engaged in.

Te Neighbourhood i the mot external zoom level, it re-

reent all the comuter in the ame meh, (uually a chool or

art o it). Te Neighbourhood i the lace where to meet new

riend. n the Neighbourhood view it i oible to ee what ac-tivity other tudent are taking art in and join them. hildren

in the Neighbourhood view are viually arranged around their

activity to give an overview o activitie oularity. (Fig.13)

Te inner zoom level i the ctivity view. Te ctivity view

i the equivalent o the ofware window in common oerating


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Fig.13 XO Neighbourhood view screenshot with active frame.


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ytem. t i the lace where actual creation, exloration, and

collaboration take lace. t aearance change deending on

the current running activity.ther main element o the O interace are the Fram, the

ulltin oardand theJournal. Te Frame i an area that o-u

when activated by moving the moue curor near creen corner.

Te Frame reent the ame inormation at all zoom level and

it i ued to dilay lace, eole, object and action. t alo

eature a earch bar. Detailed inormation about uer, whom

the child i haring an activity with, are dilayed in the Frame.

t, alo, give notication and how incoming invitation. Tebottom art i an alication launcher with an iconic lit o all

the activitie. Te lef ide i an extended cliboard where it i

oible to drag and dro object that the child want to a

rom an activity to another or that he want to hare with other

children.

Te Bulletin Board i the lace where to ot object and

idea. t i a contextual ace and it change baed on what zoomlevel the child actually i in. Te Bulletin Board give dierent

oortunitie o interaction among uer. n the Home view, it

become a way o keeing note or oneel.

nide the Bulletin Board there i a atial chatting interace and

a le traner acility. hat window can be atially oitioned

by the children, giving a higher level o communication among

uer. hat window can alo be ued to oint at ome detail in

the interace and can exlain how a ecic unction work. tcan, alo, be ued by a teacher in rooreading to highlight error

and correction in real time. ( Human Intrac Guidlin

2008, ne ato er hild, viewed 8 ctober 2008, )


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Te Journal i the leytem exlorer. oncet o leytem,

older, ave and oen are all dicarded in O lato. Deigner

decided to ue time a the main way o retrieving activitie.hildren do not need to worry about aving le and choo-

ing hierarchical ath or toring the reult o their activitie.

Te ytem automatically take track o dierent tate o an

activity, enabling uer to eaily nd them uing time a a re-

erence. eerring to natural caacity o human memory, the

ytem maintain dierent tate o recent activitie, while an

intelligent algorithm ugget what activity can be cancelled to

kee the journal tidy and reventing the ytem to run out omemory. ( Human Intrac Guidlin 2008, n aptop

r hild, viewed 8 ctober 2008, )

4.4 riticisms

ome reviewer oint out,

1

the O interace i dicouragingor eole ued to tandard oerating ytem. Tere are no roll-

down menu, no window, no tart button and no dekto. Te

icon in ome cae are very dierent rom current oerating

ytem convention.

ome reviewer2 think that the radical choice made by OLPC

deigner i unaccetable. Tey argue that uing a totally dierent

aradigm i an error, a it mean to ignore what ha been de-

veloed and imroved in the lat 30 year. Te imlicity at thebae o O interace, the lack o menu and ub-menu or older

1 . n aptop r hild, il tour guidato 2007, D ndri ditor, viewed 8ctober 2008, 2 . Tom Holwerda 2006, , viewed 8 ctober 2008,


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and ub-older, i een a an underetimation o develoing

countrie children abilitie (Tom Holwerda 2006, OSNews LLC,

viewed 8 ctober 2008, ). ctually, there are

evidence that children in oor and rural region o the world

are able to ue comuter a eaily a all other children.1

Ti conervative aumtion are baed on the already

mentioned inertia that make eole reer to relate with what

they already know and conider amiliar. Te act that learning

a ytem baed on dekto metahor i not dicult even or

children who have no reviou exerience with real world coun-terart, doe not revent rom earching or better concetual

model. a matter o act, early teting with O demontrated

that children take jut ew minute to learn how to ue it. (ne

ato er hild 2007, video recording, CBS NEWS, )

n a cenario where interace remained unaltered or almot

30 year, it can be dicult to imagine alternative olution todekto metahor, but OLPC lato i a good examle o how

change are oible.

1 Tat emerged rom a ilot roject conducted by Negroonte in 1982 u-ing le comuter. (n aptop r hild rogr n.d., n aptop r

hild, Cambridge, viewed 8 October 2008, < htt://lato.org/en/viion/rogre/index.html/>)


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Conclusions

Te reviou chater illutrated the roblem ariing when

eole have to communicate with comuter. ommunicationwith comuter i a mediation between two entitie that ue a

comletely dierent language. Te lace where thee two enti-

tie meet i the interace. Human-comuter nterace deigner

have to nd good way to make communication ucceul and

mooth.

t the very beginning o comuting, in the 1950, machinewere really dicult to ue. lot o eort and knowledge wa

needed. omuter were mainly ued in reearch laboratorie

and univeritie. Trough the year comuter became more

and more owerul and veratile. ore eole tarted benet-

ing rom comuter aid, interace became more uer riendly

and allowed to accomlih tak never thought oible beore.

t the end o the 1970, comuter became chea enough to

be aordable or conumer, but, due to their technical iue,they were ued only by exert and enthuiat that had the

will to learn dicult command and equence to obtain only

ew benet. Te real turning oint arrived in the mid-1980,

when the advent o the GUI (rahical er nterace) allowed

a wider audience to eaily obtain intereting reult with much


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le eort and at a decreaing cot. ince then, the I market ha

alway been very lively. nnovation and new technologie are

introduced at a at ace: comonent rice go down, comutereciency increae, new roduct are reented every day and

new oible ue arie. Nowaday, comuter are ued, beide

or roductivity, alo to communicate through the nternet, to

tore icture, watch movie, liten to muic, lay videogame.

lthough many change are occurring, human comuter inter-

ace have not changed much ince the introduction o the GUI

and the dekto metahor.

the 30-year-old dekto metahor interace o uitable that

no other innovation i needed? Tere are multile evidence

that the dekto metahor i not u-to-date with actual uer

need. Te reaon or thi ga were ound in ofware market

and eole inertia and in the aarent lack o any alternative,

good enough to go over the aticingattitude.1

ome alternative to the dekto interace were illutrated, the

zooming interace aradigm wa reented a a oible valid

alternative to current interace. ince it ue univeral atial

metahor, it i uitable or a wider range o uer. oreover, it

wa exlained how it can be ucceully alied to a dierent

cale: rom big creen to mall device.

Te lat chater reented the ne ato er hild roject.

Te aim o thi ambitiou roject i to maively introducenormation echnologie in develoing countrie education

ytem. ecial lato i to be roduced or the OLPC roject

coe. OLPC interace deigner decided to abandon mot o the

1 aticing mean atiying and ucing . aragrah 2.4


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current interace convention and tried to introduce metahor

and concetual model more adequate or that brand new target.

Te deciion o changing actual interace tandard wa criti-cized by ome commentator; at reent, there are not enough

evidence to judge the ucce o thi oeration, but it i an im-

ortant deciion that can lay the bai or a witch in comuter

interace and in the way eole think comuter in general.

looking at the at can hel in undertanding the reent, then

it i oible to look at early review o grahic uer interace,

when they tarted to reach the market in early 1980. eviewergave a very cold welcome to thoe new device. ome review

dicarded the viual language a childih (Johnon 1997, .54). t

eemed a crazy idea that uch colourul, drawn interace could

be ued in a working environment. ther thought that the GUI

wa ueul only or artit and deigner. Te mot oen-minded

were able to undertand the ower o uing the dekto meta-

hor but were cetical about the need to tie it with icon and aointing device. (bid. .55)

omuter uer o the early 1980 were ued to control their ma-

chine with command-line interace and they were able to er-

orm a lot o owerul tak in an eay and at way, comared

to reviou technologie. Tee day nearly all the categorie o

comuter uer who have exerienced re-dekto interace

remember thoe day a dicult old time. aybe it will be theame in a ew year, when thinking back to the hard time o

dekto interace.


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Bareld, 1993, T ur intrac concpt and dign, ddion-eley,

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ooer, & eimann, 2003,bout ac 2.0: th ntial o

intraction dign, iley, ndianaoli.

Dertouzo, 2001, T unnihd rvolution: human-cntrd

computr and hat thy can do or u, Harer ollin ubliher,

New York.Dourih, 2001, hr th action i: th oundation o mbodid

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Harel, & aert, 1991, ontructionim, blex ublihing,

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Johnon, 1999, Intrac cultur, Baic Book, New York.

Katelinin, V & zerwinki, (ed.) 2007, yond th dktop

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aurel, B (ed.) 1990, T art o human-computr intrac dign,

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dekto metahor with hyic, ile and the en, rocding o

HI 2006 - th onrnc on Human Factor in omputing

ytm,viewed 8 augut 2008, .Bederon B., Hollan J., erlin K., eyer J., Bacon D. & Furna . 1994,

ad++: a zoomable grahical ketchad or exloring alternate

interace hyic, ympoium on Ur Intrac oar and

chnology rocding o th 7th annual ACM ympoium on Ur

intrac oar and tchnology,viewed 8 ugut 2008, .

Vido

nand garaala: umpop dktop i a bautiul m 2007, video

recording, conerence, ong Beach. Viewed 8 ugut 2008,

.

Dougla nglbart: T othr o ll Dmo 1968, video

recording. Viewed 8 ugut 2008, .

hone 3G. A guided tour 2008, video recording, le nc.,

uertino. Viewed 8 ugut 2008, .

Jf Han: Unviling th gniu o multi-touch intrac dign 2006,


91/92

80

video recording, conerence, ong Beach. Viewed 8 ugut

2008, .

ac OS X opard. guidd tour2008, video recording, le nc.,

uertino. Viewed 8 ugut 2008, .

n aptop r hild2007, televiion rogram, 60 minut, CS WS,

New York, 26 ugut. roducer atherine lian. Viewed 8 ugut

2008, .

n

HCI Dissertation

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