PSPD

The creativity support tool, Public Social Private Design (PSPD) has two fundamental components - hardware and software. The rest is left up to the user! PSPD has been designed to effectively integrate into the design process, bring together the advantages of traditional design tools and technologies together, while enhancing the collaborative creative process and reducing the impact of detrimental social influences.

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The Hardware

Collaborative creativity is a dynamic process where members of a group (i.e. a design team) constantly switch from working as a group, a sub-group or individually. Due to detrimental impact of social influences on creativity it is essential that creativity support tools facilitate the dynamic processes of collaborative creativity without introducing constraints.

PSPD utilises the different interaction spaces inherent in different technologies - a tabletop (public), a tablet PC (social) and a PDA (private). It is left up to the users of the PSPD to adopt these technologies as they see fit to support them throughout the design process.

The PSPD environment is made up of a tabletop display, two tablet PCs and four PDAs - this set up is intended for a design team of four.

The Tabletop display - This technology provides a public interaction space, allowing all members of the group to engage around the technology and collaborate with each other and interact simultaneously with the technology.

The Tablet PC - This technology provides a social interaction space, allowing a sub-group (i.e. two members is comfortable) to collaborate together and interact with the technology. Due to the constrained interaction space, it is not possible for all members of the group comfortably collaborate around this technology, therefore providing a feeling of social inclusion for its users.

The PDAs - This technology provides a private interaction space, allowing members of a group to work individually. Due to the constrained interaction space, it is not possible for all members of the group, or even a sub-group to collaborate around this technology, therefore providing a private environment for the user.

In addition to the interaction spaces inherent in each of the technologies, they all use stylus based interaction which allows for consistence with the traditional design metaphor of paper and pencil design.

The Software

The software implemented for PSPD is designed to support concept design - the creative process of getting ideas down quickly through the use of sketching and annotation. Our previous research and that other other has shown that idea generation needs a mixture of media such as textual and graphical and neither one is adequate alone.

The requirement for the concept design application have come from previous research into the domain of sketching and our own ethnographic studies.

The Canvas - Each device simply displays a blank canvas which can be manipulated by the user with the stylus to create sketches. This simple display acts as the uses paper and is not cluttered with menus and toolbox, which can result in obstruction and cognitive overload.

Pie Menus - Menu selections are made through the use of initiative pie menus. When the user holds down the stylus still on the canvas for 1 second the pie menu appears with a number of options for available functionality.

Due to the fact the user can be positioned anywhere around the device, the text has no preference for user orientation.

Marking Menus - This is an extension to the pie menus for expert users. Once the use become familiar with the options of the pie menu, they can simply perform a gesture to choose their selected option. When the user holds down the stylus still for 0.5 seconds the user can perform a gesture to execute their desired command. For example, gesturing North-East with execute the 'Annotate' command. Performing combinations of gestures can also execute sub-menu commands.

Vector Graphics - Using different technologies can cause problems when displaying sketches from one device to the other. Simple transformations can cause problems alone. Due to different resolutions and transforms sketches can become pixilated and eventually unusable. To remove this limitation we have implemented vector graphics for both editing and display. This allows sketches to be transformed without loss of quality.

When the user inputs a stylus stroke the points are the stylus movement are captured and a simple raster sketch is displayed for user feedback. When the user lifts the mouse up, the points are used to calculate the vector path and replace the raster. Any transforms can then we performed on the vectors.

Sketching Functionality - The functionality for our application has come from an abundance of previous research into sketching and our own ethnographic studies. From this research we have integrated the following functionality in PSPD:

Annotate: Allows the user to annotate a sketch, providing more detail if required. This annotation can be left through typed text, hand-drawn text and audio annotation.

Layer: Add layer; Remove layer; Duplicate layer; flatten layers; Show layers; and, Hide Layers.

Tool Options: Pencil Size; Pencil Hardness; Pencil Colour; and, Pencil Auto (this function automatically alters the pencil size and hardness dependent on the speed of stylus moment).

Transform: Move; Rotate; Scale; and, Zoom.

All of this functionality can be accessed through the pie menus and marked menus. Upon selection the user can manipulate their chosen option through gestures i.e. circular gesture for rotate; or a linear gesture for zoom.

Share - PSPD supports the creative process of concept sketching on an group, sub-group and group level. The share capability of PSPD allows sketches to be shared between levels. Any sketch belonging to the public domain can be accessed by any level. A sketch belonging to the social level can only be accessed by an individual belonging to the sub-group in question. No one can access a private level sketch apart from the creator. Individual and sub-group levels can give sketches to any other level. This framework supports the privacy of information.

Together the hardware and the software provide an environment which allow a group (i.e. a design team) to collaborate and interact effectively in creative collaborative activities such as design.