AI Seminar for December 5
Thomas Bartold
Prof. David Kieras of the AI lab
on Tuesday December 5th,
the usual time (4pm) and place
(ATL large conference room).
Title and abstract follow:
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Demystifying Direct Manipulation
A key feature of GUIs is direct manipulation, in which the user acts
on displayed objects directly through a pointing device, rather than
indirectly through keyboard commands. This approach has been hailed
as the major breakthrough in user interface technology, and has
become the standard interface concept on most platforms. The assumed
superiority of direct manipulation is based on a simple intuition
that more efficient cognitive processes seem to be involved. However,
different perceptual/motor constraints and operating procedures are
also involved. Rather than trying to understand such a mix of factors
intuitively, computational models based on an embodied cognitive
architecture can explain in detail what happens during task execution
with different interfaces. This work uses such models to explain a
puzzling mix of effects produced by comparing keypad versus
touchscreen interfaces in a performance-critical laboratory task.