Managing a Document-Based Information Space

Managing a Document-Based Information Space
Matthias Deller, Stefan Agne, Achim Ebert, Andreas Dengel, Hans Hagen, Bertin Klein, Michael Bender, Tony Bernadin, Bernd Hamann
Proceedings of 13th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI-2008), 13th, January 13-16, Maspalomas, Spain

Abstract:
We present a novel user interface in the form of a complementary virtual environment for managing personal document archives, i.e., for document filing and retrieval. Our implementation of a spatial medium for document interaction, exploratory search and active navigation plays to the strengths of human visual information processing and further stimulates it. Our system provides a high degree of immersion so that the user readily forgets the artificiality of our environment. Three wellintegrated features support this immersion: first, we enable users to interact more naturally through gestures and postures (the system can be taught custom ones); second, we exploit 3D display technology; and third, we allow users to manage arrangements (manually edited structures, as well as computer-generated semantic structures). Our ongoing evaluation shows that even nonexpert users can efficiently work with the information in a document collection and that the process can actually be enjoyable.
Keywords:
Multimodal Interaction, Interactive Search, Human-centered Design, Immersion, 3D User Interface