The missing link: integrating paper and electronic documents

Despite the ubiquity of computers and on-line documents, paper persists. As physical objects, paper documents are easy to use, flexible, portable and are difficult to replace. Even though many professionals use computers, engineers also hand annotate large paper engineering drawings, video producers still sketch and rearrange paper storyboards, air traffic controllers still plan traffic flows with paper flight strips and biologists still record experiments and organise data in paper notebooks. In this article, I argue that we should seriously reconsider the urge to replace paper documents with on-line versions that are accessible only with a mouse and keyboard and viewable only a screen. Instead, we should begin to think about "interactive paper", which maintains the ease-of-use of physical paper, while enabling us to benefit from the full spectrum of interactive computing. The goal is to create the missing link between physical and electronic documents.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: IHM
• Authors: Wendy E. Mackay
• Keywords: IHM 2003, Paper, Paper Documents, Paper Engineering Drawings, Signal Processing