Supporting Knowledge Workers Beyond the Desktop With Palplates

Palplates are a collection of touch-screen terminals placed around the office enabling human-computer interactions at the point of need. Supporting a community of mobile authenticated workers with a small number of stationary devices is an alternative to providing each person with a portable wireless computer. In contrast to the PC’s desktop metaphor, Palplates use a place metaphor that reflect the actual rooms, corridors, and buildings that are part of the office place. Users interact graphically with applications supported by a geographic database. The user interface is generated dynamically based on the user’s identity, the point-of-access, and the changing collection of physical office equipment, electronic documents and applications present at any given location. Keywords ubiquitous computing, context-aware computing, mirror worlds, mobile computing, kiosk systems,MUDs

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1997
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Jennifer Mankoff, Bill N. Schilit
• Keywords: CHI 1997, Human Computer Interaction, Mobile Authenticated Workers, PC’s Desktop Metaphor, Portable Wireless Computer