I helped to develop the Kimura prototype system with the goal of understanding how activity models, peripheral displays, and context-awareness can be used to support task-awareness and multitasking in knowledge work. The Kimura prototype combines a desktop computer running a custom virtual desktop manager with an electronic whiteboard and context-aware infrastructure. As in previous systems like Rooms, users create virtual desktops on the computer to separate and organize their various work activities. Kimura builds a model of activity based on the "virtual context" of users' interactions with the desktop computer and virtual window manager. It then integrates other virtual and physical context sensed by the context-aware infrastructure into the model. The resulting clusters of computational artifacts and contextual cues are called working contexts, and display a representation of each, called a montage, on the electronic whiteboard. Users can view the whiteboard as a passive peripheral display and monitor the state of all ongoing work activities. They can also interact with the whiteboard directly to annotate, organize, and switch among working contexts.

Collaborators

• Blair MacIntyre
• Beth Mynatt
• Greg Corso
• Klaus Hansen
• Joe Tullio
• Scott Lewis

Publications

• Liogkas, N., MacIntyre, B., Mynatt, E.D., Smaragdakis, Y., Tilevich, E., & Voida, S. (2004, July–September). Automatic partitioning for prototyping ubiquitous computing applications. IEEE Pervasive Computing 3(3), 40–47.
• Mynatt, E.D., Huang, E.M., Voida, S., & MacIntyre, B. (2003). Large displays for knowledge work. In O’Hara, K., Perry, M., Churchill, E., & Russell, D. (Eds.), Public and situated displays: Social and interactional aspects of shared display technologies (pp. 80–102). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
• Voida, S., Mynatt, E.D., & MacIntyre, B. (2002). Supporting collaboration in a context-aware office computing environment. Position paper for the UbiComp 2002 workshop on Collaboration with Interactive Walls and Tables, Göteborg, Sweden, September 29–October 1.
• Voida, S., MacIntyre, B., & Mynatt, E.D. (2002). Supporting collaboration in a context-aware office computing environment. Position paper for the CSCW 2002 workshop on Public, Community, and Situated Displays: Design Use, and Interaction Around Shared Information Displays, New Orleans, Louisiana, November 16–20.
• Voida, S., Mynatt, E.D., MacIntyre, B., & Corso, G.M. (2002, July–September). Integrating physical and virtual context to support knowledge workers. IEEE Pervasive Computing 1(3), 73–79.
• MacIntyre, B., Mynatt, E.D., Voida, S., Hansen, K.M., Tullio, J., & Corso, G.M. (2001). Support for multitasking and background awareness using interactive peripheral displays. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2001, pp. 41–50), Orlando, Florida, November 11–14. ACM Press.
• Hansen, K.M., MacIntyre, B., Mynatt, E.D., Tullio, J., & Voida, S. (2001). Hypermedia in the Kimura system: Using spatial, temporal, & navigational relationships to support multitasking and background awareness. Student poster presented at the ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia (Hypertext 2001), Århus, Denmark, August 14–18.

Research Sponsors