I/O Toolkits Scott Klemmer · 16 November 2006

Recap: What are Interface Toolkits? Goal: make it easier to develop user interfaces by providing application developers with reusable components that accomplish common input and output needs Toolkits have a well-planned architecture and API & provide a library

Example: Java Swing GUI toolkit with a widget set and an API

Example: M$ Interface Builder Can specify widget placement and basic properties with a visual editor Programmer writes code for widget callbacks and complex behaviors

Why use toolkits? Code reuse saves programmer time 50% of code is for the GUI [Myers & Rosson, CHI ’92] Consistent look & feel across apps Easier to modify and iterate the UI Make UI development accessible to more people Non-artists Non-programmers???

Drawbacks Can be limiting – developers are likely to make the kinds of UIs that the toolkit makes easy Traditional GUI toolkits are problematic for non-WIMP user interfaces such as: Groupware Physical UIs

DiamondSpin Toolkit Toolkit for tabletop user interfaces [Shen, Vernier, Forlines, Ringel] CHI ’04

Tabletop UI Needs Multi-user support Identity-aware widgets Multiple menus Public and personal spaces Resolving conflicting actions Arbitrary orientation of UI elements Techniques to control orientation and layout Rotation sensitive components

DiamondSpin Video

iStuff Toolkit Physical UI components for ubiquitous computing environments (multiple users, devices, and applications) [Ballagas, Ringel, Stone, Borchers], CHI ‘03

iStuff Design iStuff components PatchPanel Device + proxy (“smarts” are in the proxy) PatchPanel Translate between iStuff events and application-specific events Run-time retargetable events Address dimension mismatches

Evaluating Toolkits Ease of use Depth, Breadth, and Extensibility A toolkit’s API is a user interface, too! [Klemmer et al., 2004] evaluated the API of Papier-Mache Depth, Breadth, and Extensibility Systems issues Speed Portability

Current Research Challenges Complex design space e.g., Do we have to update the toolkit every time someone creates a new sensor or actuator? Ambiguous input Speech, gestures, computer vision, etc. aren’t recognized as accurately as mouse clicks. Should the toolkit handle the recognition?

Summary I/O Toolkits provide reusable interface components to simplify UI development Toolkit trap: it’s tempting to only make UIs that the toolkit makes easy, instead of making what’s best for a specific app Toolkit types: WIMP (Garnet, Swing, Motif, etc) Speciality (Phidgets, iStuff, Papier-Mache, DiamondSpin, GroupKit, Peripheral Displays Toolkit, etc)

Next Time… Display Techniques Interactive public ambient displays: transitioning from implicit to explicit, public to personal, interaction with multiple users, Daniel Vogel, Ravin Balakrishnan SUPPLE: Automatically Generating User Interfaces, Krzysztof Gajos and Daniel S. Weld