ambient

Most current interface designs require that the user focus their attention on them in order to be of value. However, as the price of computation falls, and computational capabilities make their way into many everyday objects, the demand for attention from many different directions may begin to seriously reduce the usefulness of these computational objects. Ambient information displays are intended to fit in a part of the interface design space that does not have this property. They are designed to convey background or context information that the user may or may not wish to attend to at any given time. Ambient Displays are designed to work primarily in the periphery of a user's awareness, moving to the center of attention only when appropriate and desirable. This paper describes a new ambient information display that is designed to give a rich medium of expression placed within an aesthetically pleasing decorative object. This display --- the Information Percolator --- is formed by air bubbles rising up tubes of water. By properly controlling the release of air, a set of pixels which scroll up the display is created. This allows a rendition of any (small, black and white) image to be displayed. The detailed design and construction of this display device will be considered, along with several applications.

We develop design principles and an interaction framework for sharable, interactive public ambient displays that support the transition from implicit to explicit interaction with both public and personal information. A prototype system implementation that embodies these design principles is described. We use novel display and interaction techniques such as simple hand gestures and touch screen input for explicit interaction and contextual body orientation and position cues for implicit interaction. Techniques are presented for subtle notification, self-revealing help, privacy controls, and shared use by multiple people each in their own context. Initial user feedback is also presented, and future directions discussed.

Normally, the primary purpose of an information display is to convey information. If information displays can be aesthetically interesting, that might be an added bonus. This paper considers an experiment in reversing this imperative. It describes the Kandinsky system which is designed to create displays which are first aesthetically interesting, and then as an added bonus, able to convey information. The Kandinsky system works on the basis of aesthetic properties specified by an artist (in a visual form). It then explores a space of collages composed from information bearing images, using an optimization technique to find compositions which best maintain the properties of the artist's aesthetic expression.