We encounter tables in a variety of situations in our everyday lives \u2013 at work, at school, at home, and in restaurants, libraries, and other public venues. The ubiquity of this furniture results from the utility of its affordances: tables\u2019 horizontal surfaces afford the placement of objects, and their large surface area affords the spreading, piling, and organization of these items; chairs afford sitting and relaxing, making work\u00a0around tables leisurely and comfortable; and, perhaps most importantly, tables afford face-to-face collaboration amongst a small group of co-located individuals.<\/p>\n
Enhancing traditional tables by adding computational functionality combines the collaborative and organizational benefits of horizontal surfaces, as well as their ability to hold tangible interaction objects, with the power and adaptability of digital technology, including the ability to archive, search, and share digital documents and the ability to quickly access related information. Combining the productivity benefits\u00a0of computing with the social benefits of around-the-table interaction has value for many commonplace activities, such as business, education, and entertainment. The recent introduction of hardware that detects touch input from multiple, simultaneous users has made computationally-augmented tables, or \u201cinteractive tables,\u201d practical.<\/p>\n
This dissertation contributes a sequence of novel prototypes that explore the properties of group interaction with interactive tables. It presents the results of user experiments on the ways people share information and control in the unique setting of interactive face-to-face shared computer use. On the basis of these it proposes design principles that will produce tabletop groupware that better facilitates human-computer interaction and cooperative processes. These principles relate to appropriate uses for different regions of the table\u2019s surface, techniques for reducing visual clutter, the utility and visibility of access permissions for virtual objects, methods for influencing users\u2019 social interactions via tabletop interface design, consideration of how tabletop interface design influences and facilitates different work styles, and appropriate
\nusability metrics for evaluating this class of software.<\/p>\n
Considering tabletop design holistically, including both the human-computer<\/em> and human-human<\/em> interactions that take place during tabletop activities, can lead to the development of more usable and useful tabletop groupware.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We encounter tables in a variety of situations in our everyday lives \u2013 at work, at school, at home, and in restaurants, libraries, and other public venues. The ubiquity of this furniture results from the utility of its affordances: tables\u2019 horizontal surfaces afford the placement of objects, and their large surface area affords the spreading, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"msr-content-type":[3],"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13554],"msr-publication-type":[193725],"msr-product-type":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-platform":[],"msr-download-source":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-154542","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-human-computer-interaction","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"Stanford 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