cid 7eb4771d102bf3aa65f35e2859214b875ba040eeb5c73437096a748375e28418 · original · via openalex
Title: The information percolator Authors: Jeremy M. Heiner; Scott E. Hudson; Kenichiro Tanaka Venue: ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) Year: 1999 Canonical: doi:10.1145/320719.322595 URL: https://doi.org/10.1145/320719.322595 Collector: openalex OA: false ABSTRACT Most current interface designs require that the user focus their attention on them in order to be of value. However, as the price of computation falls, and computational capabilities make their way into many everyday objects, the demand for attention from many different directions may begin to seriously reduce the usefulness of these computational objects. Ambient information displays are intended to fit in a part of the interface design space that does not have this property. They are designed to convey background or context information that the user may or may not wish to attend to at any given time. Ambient Displays are designed to work primarily in the periphery of a user's awareness, moving to the center of attention only when appropriate and desirable. This paper describes a new ambient information display that is designed to give a rich medium of expression placed within an aesthetically pleasing decorative object. This display — the Information Percolator — is formed by air bubbles rising up tubes of water. By properly controlling the release of air, a set of pixels which scroll up the display is created. This allows a rendition of any (small, black and white) image to be displayed. The detailed design and construction of this display device will be considered, along with several applications.