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In today's digital control rooms, desktop computers represent the most common interface for process control. Compared to their predecessors -- manual control actuators -- desktop computers enable quick and effective process intervention but they lack in process-related interaction qualities such as haptic feedback and the involvement of motor skills. Thus, design trade-offs have to be made to combine the strengths of both paradigms: today's processing power with the interaction qualities of former control room interfaces. In this paper related interaction concepts are presented and evaluated. In a control room scenario, participants were tasked with adjusting numerical values -- so-called process variables -- under two traditional conditions (mouse, keyboard) and two post-WIMP conditions (touch, tangible). Task completion time and recall accuracy of the adjusted values were measured. As a result, traditional desktop interaction proved to be faster, whereas control actions could be recalled significantly better using the tangible control elements. We therefore suggest providing both tangible control for process maintenance and traditional desktop interaction in critical situations that require quick intervention.

Blended Interaction is interaction in physical environments including meeting rooms, design studios, or libraries, that are augmented with new UI technologies to blend the power of digital computing with natural work practices and collaboration styles. It combines the virtues of physical and digital artifacts so that desired properties of each are preserved and computing is integrated in a considered manner. Since rapid technological advances constantly challenge existing designs, we believe that HCI should move beyond creating new technologies, single applications, and novel interaction techniques towards an overarching unified vision and theory of Blended Interaction. Our workshop will bring together leading experts in cognitive theories and post-WIMP designs and technologies to create this unified view of Blended Interaction in a multidisciplinary approach.

Control rooms are facilities that serve as operations centers to supervise complex processes, e.g. in power plants or industrial production plants. In today’s control rooms operators mainly interact with these processes via desktop computers. From a cognitive point of view mediation of process dynamics by means of keyboard, mouse and computer displays is insufficient as perception is heavily reduced to the visual sense. Mounted on the framework Blended Interaction we present novel interaction styles that holistically address the domain specific requirements and support several forms of interaction in control room environments.

In this paper we suggest novel interaction and visualization techniques for a prospective ECML crisis room environment focusing on the analysis of social media data. For this purpose we describe both, concepts providing a Daily Newsflash and concepts for the preparation of Daily Reports referring to a selected incident or crisis situation. The Daily Newsflash is an overview of global incidents regarding humanitarian crises, natural disasters, disease outbreaks, conflicts, etc. Such a bulletin typical contains 1-5 international items with brief facts and 1-5 European items. For selected incidents or crisis situations a Daily Report is prepared. A typical Daily Report consists of one page usually providing a map, key facts, and a brief summary of the situation.

Im Beitrag wird ein ganzheitliches Visualisierungs- und Interaktionskonzept für die Überwachung und Diagnose eines großen Straßennetzes sowie die Manipulation von Prozessvariablen im Kontext einer Verkehrsleitzentrale vorgestellt. Um das kooperative Arbeiten zu unterstützen wird das Konzept einer Multi-Focus-View in Kombination mit einer inhaltssensitiven Navigation verfolgt. Ziel ist es, die Navigation im Straßennetz, die Verfügbarkeit kontextsensitiver Informationen sowie die Manipulation von Prozessvariablen in Verkehrsleitzentralen zu verbessern. Weiterhin werden Ergebnisse einer Evaluation mit Anwendern aus Verkehrsleitzentralen vorgestellt, in der insbesondere die Auswirkungen unterschiedlicher Konzepte auf das Arbeiten in einer Mehrbenutzerumgebung untersucht wurden.

This paper addresses the lack of interaction qualities in control rooms by investigating the potential use of Hybrid Surfaces. As an emerging trend with strong real-world references, they offer the combination of both, the qualities of physical interaction and the potentials of the digital world. To determine their applicability in the given context we applied the theoretical framework ‘Reality-Based Interaction’ in line with an expert focus group. As the primal finding tangible forms have aroused great interest as they embody the feature to express ongoing processes states and allow multimodal interaction.

This paper describes the perspective+detail visualization concept, which extends the conventional overview+detail pattern by adding a perspective viewing area and a further, text-based area containing partial details. Known problems of such extensions are mitigated using a vertically curved display. Our concept aims to bridge both the geographical and the content gap between the two main display areas and to provide an improved overview. An experimental case study based on a typical traffic control room operator task provided first insights on our visualization. These initial findings revealed that perspective+detail assists users in fulfilling their tasks and keeping their orientation in the information space.

Context-sensitive information is of vital importance to the Monitoring of processes in control rooms, but its incorporation in current state-of-the-art user interfaces is inadequate. By looking at a traffic control center as an example, this paper proposes an interaction concept for monitoring complex networks on large remote displays. Our approach is based on content-aware navigation with the goal to improve the navigation of the road network and the availability of context-sensitive information. We conducted a study comparing different navigation techniques as well as two techniques for visualizing context-sensitive information.

In this paper, we propose Blended Interaction as a conceptual framework for the design of interactive spaces. We argue that for realizing a natural computer-supported collaboration in smart environments or interactive spaces, designers must achieve a holistic understanding and design of the users’ individual interactions, social interactions, workflows and their physical environment. To thoughtfully blend the power of the digital world with the users’ pre-existing skills and practices, we propose and explain conceptual blending as a potential design methodology. We illustrate our framework by discussing related theoretical and conceptual work and by explaining the design decisions we made in recent projects. In particular, we highlight how Blended Interaction introduces a new and more accurate description of users’ cognition and interaction in interactive spaces that can serve as a tool for HCI researchers and interaction designers.

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dc.contributor.author: Schwarz, Tobias; Butscher, Simon; Müller, Jens; Reiterer, Harald

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dc.contributor.author: Schwarz, Tobias; Heilig, Mathias; Butscher, Simon; Müller, Jens; Reiterer, Harald

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dc.contributor.author: Schwarz, Tobias; Oortmann, Holger; Reiterer, Harald

This paper presents an inter-domain context-of-use analysis which addresses the challenge posed by the constantly increasing complexity of the human-computer interface in the work environment of control room operators. The data gathered is taken as a basis to propose new ways of optimizing the operators' work environment as a “holistic workspace”. New concepts are introduced which give equal consideration to the design levels of interaction, social communication, workflow support and physical surroundings.

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dc.contributor.author: Schwarz, Tobias; Kehr, Flavius; Oortmann, Holger; Reiterer, Harald