During my summer internship at PARC, I explored novel user interfaces for file and service sharing. I conducted a study of expert computer users to determine what files and services they typically shared, how they shared them, and with whom they frequently shared. Based on their responses and a survey of existing sharing interfaces, I developed a new user interface called a sharing palette. Using the Speakeasy infrastructure as a means for sharing files and services across the network, the sharing palette constituted a single point of interaction for sharing, allowed sharing with individuals or user-specified groups, provided persistent visibility of shared items, and created a hybrid style of sharing that lies between the "push"-oriented metaphor of email and the "publish" or "pull" style of sharing associated with posting content to the Web.

Collaborators

• Keith Edwards
• Mark Newman
• Beki Grinter
• Nic Ducheneaut

Publications

• Voida, S., Edwards, W.K., Grinter, R.E., & Ducheneaut, N. (2006). Share and share alike: Exploring the user interface affordances of file sharing. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2006, pp. 221–230), Montréal, Québec, April 22–27. ACM Press.

Research Sponsors