Improving Between-Document Navigation in Graphical User Interfaces

Several interfaces, interaction techniques and tools in current desktop systems show numerous usability related limitations and deficits, making them unnecessarily inefficient and hard to use. Many of the frequently used techniques and tools for basic user tasks originate from the early days of personal computing and desktop interfaces and have either remained unchanged or have been only slightly improved through minor design modifications. For example, navigation between documents displayed in different windows is a frequently performed interaction task that can be very cumbersome to execute-especially when several documents and windows are opened at the same time-using the "classic" techniques: manipulations of window borders and title bars, Alt-Tab keyboard combinations and Taskbar selections. Whereas these essential between-document navigation techniques have remained much the same throughout the years, the hardware equipment, working environments and user groups they were originally designed for have changed considerably. Examples include, the introduction of new input devices, powerful processors allowing multi-tasking, unstable and shaky mobile working environments, multi- monitor desktop settings, and users with motor impairments having problems with accurate cursor manipulations. Overall, very little has been undertaken in order to help and support users by making between-document navigation more efficient and less error prone. This project aims at improving the classic between-document navigation techniques and at designing new alternatives. In a first step, document navigation interactions will be thoroughly analyzed and described by means of longitudinal user studies and mathematical performance models. Then, a user- centered and iterative design process will be employed to develop improvements and alternatives, followed by rigorous hypothesis testing in several user experiments comparing the classic and the new techniques.