A DIRECT MANIPULATION USER INTERFACE FOR THE CONTROL OF COMMUNICATION PROCESSES - MAKING CALL HANDLING MANAGEABLE -

摘要

With the advent of a multitude of devices integrating information and communication technology, the support of communication functionality with screen-based devices becomes more and more important (Schneider-Hufschmidt and Schallenberger 1999). Scalable user interfaces that are applicable on a large variety of these devices, from the PC to small handheld personal digital assistants, make communication transparent to the users of these devices. Instead of having to learn the basics of telecommunication over and over for each device the users can transfer their knowledge between these devices. We developed a user interface for screen-based telephony applications (the Communication Circle) which combines the advantages of direct manipulation with an intuitive metaphor for setting up and controlling synchronous communication processes. In the Communication Circle environment, tasks like call swapping, transfer, or the control of conference calls can be done in an almost self-explanatory manner. This report describes the basic concepts of our approach and the state of the development, and discusses results of usability studies and future developments of the system.