Author: Michael Bernstein, Jeff Shrager, and Terry Winograd
Comments: Zach
Summary:
This paper introduced the idea of classifying tasks from the binary model that has been used to a more fuzzy based model in order to arrange windows in groups based on their associations with each other. Previous task based systems seemed to force the user into identifying certain tasks and it was not easy for them to use. This paper introduces Taskpose which is a collection of algorithms that help arrange windows by importance (most used or looked at) and by their association with each other; such as the user goes back and forth to two different windows because essentially they are related to each other for whatever purpose the user is looking at them for.
As seen in the picture above, Taskpose uses thumbnails to represent the different windows that the user has opened. To better explain how Taskpose works they have provided a diagram of what could happen which is shown below.
Taskpose contains three different algorithms in order to group together windows. The first algorithm is the WindowRank algorithm that determines window importance. It is based off of Google's PageRank system in order to tell that the user has used a certain window longer than another. The second algorithm is the window relationship algorithm that determines what windows are associated with other windows. It starts by having each window maintain a ratio of switches from itself to every other window and then each window is weighted by this ratio to form the relationship. The last algorithm is the spring-embedded graph layout algorithm which actually lays out the thumbnails for the user to look at.
In order to test this they used ten undergraduate students that were to use Taskpose for at least one hour every day for a week so that the results were with natural data. They found that the participants used Taskpose in their every day computer use for longer than one hour each day, and many participants said they would love to continue using it because it made their everyday usage a lot easier.
Discussion:
I think this could help save the hassle of having multiple windows opened on a task bar to where you can't even see all of your windows without going down and scrolling over the browser icon. This might also help minimize the use of different tabs across one browser. I think that by having the windows clustered together by importance will also help some people get tasks done faster because all of the windows are there in view without having to search through the task bar to find the windows. One participant would have liked the windows to have docked to the bottom similar to the taskbar and I think the future work that they mentioned has already been created with the Windows 7 docking of the internet browser to the top of the screen.
It's true, windows 7 docking has already introduced something like this. I thought this idea was useful but it reminded me a lot of windows 7's method (since I've have 7 long before I read this) too much to be of use as a separate implementation. It seemed to me like this might also cause clutter if you're too lazy to close any windows since they're all nicely placed on screen.
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