Fly

Abstract

Modern presentation software is still built around interaction metaphors adapted from traditional slide projectors. We provide an analysis of the problems in this application genre that presentation authors face and present FLY, a presentation tool that is based on the idea of planar information structures. Inspired by the natural human thought processes of data chunking, association, and spatial memory, FLY explores authoring of presentation documents.Evaluation of a paper prototype showed that the planar UI is easily grasped by users, and leads to presentations more closely resembling the information structure of the original content, thus providing better authoring support than the slide metaphor. Our software prototype confirmed these results, and outperformed PowerPoint in a second study for tasks such as prototyping presentations and generating meaningful overviews. Users reported that this interface helped them better to express their concepts, and expressed significant preference for FLY over the traditional slide model. RELATED WORKPrevious projects that aimed to improve the slideware user interface are mainly based on a combination of different technologies and interaction concepts. These range from pen interaction, physical interaction, and path mechanisms to graph layouts and zoomable user interfaces: Pen InteractionClassroom Presenter [1] allows for versatile writing of annotations onto and next to slides, and for anonymous feedback from the audience. Pens have also been employed for flexible authoring of informal presentations [12], or together with speech input [20]. Major advantages of pen interaction are easy prototyping and rearranging, as well as impromptu additions during presentations [19].Physical Interaction

SlideSpace

“…Lichtschlag et al [2009] call this "time dominance." We translate their arguments into mediation effects at the whole-talk level, mirroring those of Farkas [2009]:…”

“…Lichtschlag et al [2009Lichtschlag et al [ , 2012, whose design concepts can be expressed in terms of how they avoid Slide mediation effects. First, changes in viewport size during authoring and delivery avoid content cutting and context cutting, respectively, since it can always be expanded on demand.…”

“…Like actors on a stage, visual elements enter and exit the screen, with meaningful interaction in between [Duarte 2008]. The progressive revealing of elements that is possible with the Stage metaphor [Abela 2008;Duarte 2008;Farkas 2009;Lichtschlag et al 2009] can create visual transformations that are gentler and more incremental than whole-viewport slide cuts and canvas pans/zooms.…”

“…To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, to redistribute to lists, or to use any component of this work in other works requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Permissions may be requested from Publications Dept., ACM, Inc., 2 Penn Plaza, Suite 701, New York, NY 10121-0701 USA, fax +1 (212) Lichtschlag et al 2009Lichtschlag et al , 2012. In this article, we explore opportunities to design a hybrid presentation medium that combines the benefits of different metaphors while mitigating the drawbacks of conventional authoring approaches.…”

The promise of zoomable user interfaces

“…There have been a number widely cited systems (e.g., Pad [ 41], Pad++ [ 6], Jazz [ 10] and Piccolo [ 12]), applications (e.g., PadPrints [ 26], PhotoMesa [ 11], CounterPoint [ 23], KidPad [ 20], AppLens & LaunchTile [ 32], Seadragon [ 38], Fly [ 35], pptPlex [ 37], Canvas for OneNote [ 36], and Prezi [ 43]) theoretical constructs (e.g., Space-Scale Diagrams [ 22] and Desert Fog [ 30]) and studies (e.g., [ 14,19,29,33]) to support and understand them. Many of these have had a fair amount of accolades and positive user response, yet it is fair to say that none of them have been great commercial successes.…”