1. GroupBar: The TaskBar Evolved Greg Smith, Patrick Baudisch, George Robertson, Mary Czerwinski, Brian Meyers, Daniel Robbins, and Donna Andrews Microsoft Research

2. Microsoft Research 2 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Key Problem: Task Switching Bannon et al. (1983) – information workers often switch between concurrent tasks Rooms (Card & Henderson, 1987) Working sets of windows Large displays & multimon lead to more open windows (4 > 12 > 16) Interruptions lead to more task switching

3. Microsoft Research 3 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Windows TaskBar Problems TaskBar does not support task switching Many operations required to make a switch TaskBar does not scale well Grouping by application rather than task Hypothesis: Movement, switching, & layout primitives at multi-window level can save time and effort

4. Microsoft Research 4 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Related Work Virtual Desktop Managers Smalltalk Project Views Rooms X-Windows BeOS workspaces Linux – KDE desktops, etc. Win32 ISV products: XDesk, GoScreen, Flash Desktops, DesksAtWill, etc. (not yet built into Windows) Rooms Overview (1987)

5. Microsoft Research 5 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Related Work 3D (Task Gallery) Zooming (Pad++) Time-Machine Computing Tiled (Elastic Windows)

6. Microsoft Research 6 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction GroupBar Design Points Familiar – build on Windows TaskBar Non-modal – not separate desktops Lightweight UI – low-effort group creation and management Leverage spatial memory: allow users to place tiles and groups for quicker recall

7. Microsoft Research 7 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Demo

8. Microsoft Research 8 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction GroupBar Basics Bar on any desktop edge Resizable, auto-hide, always-on-top options Multiple bars One tile for each window

9. Microsoft Research 9 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Arranging Tiles Drag tiles within bar to reorder Drag tiles between bars for greater spatial separation

10. Microsoft Research 10 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Grouping Tiles (Main Theme) Drag tile onto another tile to create group Drag tile in/out to add/remove from group Drag one of the last two tiles out to destroy group

11. Microsoft Research 11 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Dragging Subtleties Move caret is straight Insertion caret is curved toward group target Target position decoupled from caret symbol to aid in target acquisition

12. Microsoft Research 12 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Group Appearance Groups indicated by Subtle tile shape change Colored background frame Green group button

13. Microsoft Research 13 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Group Operations Group button now offers a control surface Click once to restore all Click once to minimize all Right-click for additional group operations

14. Microsoft Research 14 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Additional Group Operations Analogous to Window operations Layout templates Depend on display configuration Might depend on actual windows (not implemented) Window Menu Group Menu

15. Microsoft Research 15 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction TaskBar Collapse by app Multiple rows of tiles, buttons to page Overflow Strategies GroupBar Collapse by group Multiple bars GroupBar: collapsed group Windows: paging buttons

16. Microsoft Research 16 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Longitudinal User Study 5 participants 7-10 day study on their own work Goal: initial understanding if users will use grouping for real work

17. Microsoft Research 17 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Results Users did use grouping Average 2.5 groups of 2 windows Satisfaction ratings generally favorable Useful to drag to group Useful to close all windows in group at once Useful to remember layout Makes multiple monitors more useful

18. Microsoft Research 18 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Results (cont.) Negative satisfaction ratings for: More than one GroupBar at a time Non-group windows minimize on group switch 2 of 5 participants continued using GroupBar after study

19. Microsoft Research 19 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Comparative User Study Comparing TaskBar and GroupBar 18 participants 3 tasks consisting of 2-3 documents each Planned interruptions forced 5 task switches Triple monitor setup (3840 x 1024)

20. Microsoft Research 20 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Results Borderline significant task time advantage 11.7 min vs 13.25 min Satisfaction ratings significantly favor GB GB unanimously preferred

21. Microsoft Research 21 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Future Work Iterative design improvements Further studies for different display configurations and user tasks Layout templates based on window use Automatic grouping based on window use Persistence

22. Microsoft Research 22 of 22 OZCHI 2003: New Directions in Interaction Conclusions: Met Design Goals GroupBar provides basic task management Easy to group windows with drag and drop Single click task switching Tasks shown with subtle extension to familiar Windows TaskBar Demonstrated ease of use, learnability, and user acceptance