UIST2008 - Taskpose

Taskpose: Exploring Fluid Boundaries in an Associative Window Visualization
By Michael Bernstein (MIT), Jeff Shrager (Stanford), Terry Winograd (Stanford)
Summary:
Taskpose is a visualization tool to aid users in managing their open windows. As the paper states, today's computer workspaces are filled with many tasks and it is difficult for the user to manage their "open windows".

Taskpose
The design of Taskpose is similar to the Expose feature available on Mac OS. It places all open windows on the screen in a 2 dimensional layout and shown as a thumbnail. As the user uses several windows together, they will be placed closer on the screen. Also, the interface incorporates the WindowRank algorithm to change the window's size to increase with perceived importance to the user. Lastly, the prototype was implemented by C# and the .NET platform.

User Study

Ten college students had Taskpose installed on their computers and used the interface for one hour a day over a one week time period. The study showed that the users used the application 40.8 hours on average over the week. Overall, the users expressed that it was helpful when trying to manage a large number of windows. However, the participants would have like to have had a greater ability to customize grouping and to be able to resize the thumbnails.

Discussion:
This interface, Taskpose, seems useful and reminds me of the new way Windows7 lets you tab through windows. Being able to run through thumbnails is easier and it provides a visual cue to the task's identity. It will be interesting to see if this interface becomes readily available in the near future for the average user.