This panel brings together experts from TV production with those in the computer multimedia business. They will discuss what is likely to happen when the two media coexist. An exciting opportunity exists in merging the strengths of both media together synergistically to create pervasive and powerful Interactive Television.

No abstract available.

Too few interface designers actually use an iterative design process. Too few interface designers actually involve their anticipated users throughout the design of an interface. In order to build better interfaces, we need to build faster and more numerous prototypical interface examples. These prototypes, from early sketches to working systems, should be shown frequently and often to users for their feedback. This panel is a vignette that illustrates an interface design cycle. Our panelists will be given a real world interface design problem, and the audience will follow them through their usual process of design. Users will be involved in the process, to help in interface specification and to provide prototype feedback. We expect that although the panelists involved users throughout their design process, users will still have a good deal more to contribute to the interface design before a product is finalized. On stage we will witness real users, with varied backgrounds, providing comments and feedback on the working prototypes. The issue here is to remind designers that there is never enough user involvement in an interface design. We need to iterate our interface designs, based on users' feedback, more often and continuously if our interfaces are to be effective,

The title of this panel immediately leaps out as being out of place. Of all the things that come to mind when one thinks of computers and user interfaces, drama and personality are among the last. The point here is not to make using computers more dramatic, per se, but to learn and borrow from the performing arts about techniques that could improve main stream interface design. The contributions described in this panel are borrowed from the theatrical world, film producing and music. In all the panelists work, the user is at the very center of creating the actual user interface experience, either through direct user participation or via engaging the individual viewer's personality. The panelists' pioneering research has produced and created several examples of new user interface experiences and designs. The discussion will focus on what techniques offer the most promise for facilitating the design of really new experiential user interfaces.

This paper describes and evaluates the design of four virtual controllers for use in rotating three-dimensional objects using the mouse. Three of four of these controllers are "new" in that they extend traditional direct manipulation techniques to a 3-D environment. User performance is compared during simple and complex rotation tasks. The results indicate faster performance for complex rotations using the new continuous axes controllers compared to more traditional slider approaches. No significant differences in accuracy for complex rotations were found across the virtual controllers.A second study compared the best of these four virtual controllers (the Virtual Sphere) to a control device by Evans, Tanner and Wein. No significant differences either in time to complete rotation task or accuracy of performance were found. All but one subject indicated they preferred the Virtual Sphere because it seemed more "natural".