Fred Lakin
Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University
lakin@csli.stanford.edu
Center for Design Research, Stanford University
lakin@cdr.stanford.edu
Rehabilitation R&D Center, Palo Alto Veterans Hospital
3801 Miranda Ave, Palo Alto, California 94304
Abstract
Writing and drawing together on a common display often assist a working group in a
task. For example, face to face groups have long enjoyed the richness of graphic
communication found on blackboards. The spontaneous image manipulations which take
place over time on a blackboard can be viewed as a text graphic performance. A
human performer generates and manipulates text and graphics for the purpose of
assisting the working group in their task.
The phenomenon of performed text graphics presents opportunities for research in the
area of computer supported cooperative work. 1] Spontaneous generation demands a
performing medium where the focus is on live manipulation of text and graphics.
Design of a computer based medium with enough agility and generality to support
blackboard like activity is a challenge for interface design. 2] Agility and
generality must not be achieved at the expense of specializability. After a group
has initially sketched an idea in text and graphics, then that same medium should
also support refining the sketch according to formal schema. 3] The performing
medium can also be used as a recording medium for studying image manipulation as
part of the working group process.
This paper presents a stepwise approach to the design of a performing medium for
working group graphics. First, examples of non computer text graphics for groups are
examined to get a preliminary idea of the underlying phenomenon: the performing of
text graphic manipulation to assist working groups. Next key features of that kind of
text graphic manipulation are isolated. Then, third, the architecture and behavior of
a graphics editor providing those features is described.
vmacs transcription of paper graphics performance by David Sibbet
1.2 The phenomenon First, the subjective impression after ten
years of observing working groups is what we might call text
Next, to more objectively characterize the phenomenon underlying the three
examples: a text
We will call this kind of text
8.4 The most agility imaginable In order to get a better
feeling for all aspects of agility working in concert, let's see if we can
imagine the most responsive possible medium for text
Consider the following parable. A cargo plane is flying over the jungle enroute
to a very remote Club Med. Through a freak accident, the player piano meant for
the night club accidentally falls out of the cargo bay along with hundreds of
paper rolls, some with music and some blank. Miraculously the piano survives
intact, the only damage being the total destruction of the keyboard. Discovered
by a local tribe, one of their musicians figures out how the player piano can
be operated in order to make music. It takes about two days to punch a roll
which then produces two minutes of music. Years later an explorer happens upon
the tribe and they demonstrate piano music for him. He listens politely and
thinks somebody ought to tune the thing. Then he tries to explain the concept
of a keyboard and its use in jazz improvisation. The tribe listens
politely and thinks he is crazy. They explain patiently that his idea would
never work: piano music is far too complex for human beings to make up and
control in real time
11.3 On What Can't Be Measured The most important part of a text
* This is point is directly due to conversations with Gayle Curtis
and Margo Apostolos on robot ballet.
(C) Copyright 1994 PGC
graphic dance:
chunks of text and graphics created at one location on the display,
lingering there for a while, and then moved or changed or erased; continually
shifting patterns forming and reforming as the group goes about developing and
displaying their concepts. An expressive performing art, the meaning of which
is in all of the intermediate imagery, where the final frame may not be any
more meaningful than the final position in a ballet. And finally, the
impression is also of a performing art so horribly artifact bound that
text graphic dance as it was `meant' to be is only glimpsed now and then
through the clumsy media that circumstances force the performers to employ. graphic performance to serve a task oriented group. The
performance is text graphic in that it involves manipulating text and graphics
over a set period of time. The performance serves the working group in that the
images displayed during the performance relate to their task (present,
represent, express, explain, diagram, show the structure of, mean). The
performance is by an operator (or operators) whose purpose it is to insure that
the performance serves the group. graphic performance "working group graphics".
There are many other kinds of possible text graphic performances that we won't
discuss in this paper (a single operator for his own consumption, multiple
operators for a play oriented group, etc.). There are many different possible
styles of text graphic peforming within the kind we have designated working
group graphics ... graphic dance. This
imaginary performing instrument will represent the limits of agility which the
present medium tries to approach. We might describe this medium in operation
as hand powered performance animation. Not only are text and graphics
moving as fast as the operator desires, but even the very quality of their
movement in under his or her complete control. Admittedly such a medium is
hard to imagine complete animation of text graphics generated live in
performance but perhaps part of the problem lies with our ability to
imagine ... and even if they could, no interface could possibly
handle the bandwidth. graphic
performance may be the hardest to measure. Text graphics for working groups is
important at all because it is expressive of the group's task. Some of the
expression takes place in the static image content, and is relatively easy to
measure. And yet finally, to return to the initial characterization of the
phenomenon of working group graphics as being like dance, the most effective
expressive quality may be the hardest to isolate scientifically: the quality of
movement of the text graphics *. If each visual
event is under full expressive control of the performer, then nuances of phrasing
and timing may strike the audience very forcibly, but be very hard to measure. To
algorithmically measure the full effect of a performance may be like trying to write
a program to measure the effectiveness of a piece of music.
Contents
Computer Media
1.2 The phenomenon
1.3 Methodological assumption Graphic Manipulation For Working Groups
2.2 Text Graphic
2.3 Manipulatory
2.4 Performed
2.5 Fast
2.6 Unstructured
2.7 Structured
2.8 Reflective
Graphics
Graphic
10.2 Formal Visual Dynamics
11.2 Measuring Performances
11.3 On What Can't Be Measured
Published in the proceedings of the CONFERENCE ON COMPUTER-SUPPORTED COOPERATIVE WORK,
Austin, Texas, December 3-5, 1986; reprinted as a
chapter in COMPUTER-SUPPORTED COOPERATIVE WORK: A Book of Readings, edited
by Greif, Irene, Morgan Kaufman Publishers, Palo Alto, 1988.
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