Scalable Fabric: flexible task management
Abstract
Our studies have shown that as displays become larger, users leave more windows open for easy multitasking. A larger number of windows, however, may increase the time that users spend arranging and switching between tasks. We present Scalable Fabric, a task management system designed to address problems with the proliferation of open windows on the PC desktop. Scalable Fabric couples window management with a flexible visual representation to provide a focus-plus-context solution to desktop complexity. Users interact with windows in a central focus region of the display in a normal manner, but when a user moves a window into the periphery, it shrinks in size, getting smaller as it nears the edge of the display. The window "minimize" action is redefined to return the window to its preferred location in the periphery, allowing windows to remain visible when not in use. Windows in the periphery may be grouped together into named tasks, and task switching is accomplished with a single mouse click. The spatial arrangement of tasks leverages human spatial memory to make task switching easier. We review the evolution of Scalable Fabric over three design iterations, including discussion of results from two user studies that were performed to compare the experience with Scalable Fabric to that of the Microsoft Windows XP TaskBar.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Previous approaches such as TaskTracer, Scalable Fabric, GroupBar and Mylyn allow the capturing and presentation of task context but require the user to manually group related artifacts or manually state the start and end of a task, reducing chances of long-term adoption.
“While previous approaches, such as TaskTracer [7], Scalable Fabric [78], GroupBar [9] and Mylyn [6], allow the capturing and presentation of task context, they require the user to manually group related artifacts or manually state the start and end of a task, thus, reducing chances of long-term adoption.”
From Detecting Developers' Task Switches and Types (2022) · cites this paper as [78]
Cites
A diary study of task switching and interruptions
Czerwinski, M., Horvitz, E., & Wilhite, S. (2004) · Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/985692.985715 · Cited by 830 · see citing works
Self-citationHow do people organize their desks?
Malone, T. W. (1983) · ACM Transactions on Information Systems · doi:10.1145/357423.357430 · Cited by 803 · see citing works
Bederson, B. B., & Hollan, J. D. (1994) · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) · doi:10.1145/192426.192435 · Cited by 638 · see citing works
Henderson, D. A., & Card, S. (1986) · ACM Transactions on Graphics · doi:10.1145/24054.24056 · Cited by 522 · see citing works
Robertson, G. G., Czerwinski, M. P., Larson, K., Robbins, D. C., Thiel, D., & van Dantzich, M. (1998) · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) · doi:10.1145/288392.288596 · Cited by 502 · see citing works
Self-citation(2001) · Cited by 341 · see citing works
Rekimoto, J. (1999) · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) · doi:10.1145/320719.322582 · Cited by 243 · see citing works
Mynatt, E. D., Igarashi, T., Edwards, W. K., & LaMarca, A. (1999) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/302979.303108 · Cited by 239 · see citing works
Instant Messaging and Interruption: Influence of Task Type on Performance
Czerwinski, M. P., Cutrell, E., & Horvitz, E. (2000) · Cited by 227 · see citing works
Self-citationFluid interaction with high-resolution wall-size displays
Guimbretière, F. V., Stone, M., & Winograd, T. (2001) · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) · doi:10.1145/502352.502353 · Cited by 225 · see citing works
Robertson, G. G., van Dantzich, M., ROBBINS, D. W., Czerwinski, M. P., Hinckley, K., Risden, K., Thiel, D., & Gorokhovsky, V. (2000) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/332040.332482 · Cited by 204 · see citing works
Self-citationBaudisch, P., Good, N. S., & Stewart, P. (2001) · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) · doi:10.1145/502348.502354 · Cited by 196 · see citing works
Self-citation(2000) · Cited by 192 · see citing works
Support for multitasking and background awareness using interactive peripheral displays
MacIntyre, B., Mynatt, E. D., Voida, S., Hansen, K. M., Tullio, J., & Corso, G. M. (2001) · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) · doi:10.1145/502348.502355 · Cited by 174 · see citing works
Fluid interaction with high-resolution wall-size displays
Guimbretière, F. V., Stone, M., & Winograd, T. (2001) · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) · doi:10.1145/502348.502353 · Cited by 141 · see citing works
Czerwinski, M. P., van Dantzich, M., Robertson, G. G., & Hoffman, H. G. (1999) · International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction · Cited by 119 · see citing works
Self-citationA taxonomy of window manager user interfaces
Myers, B. A. (1988) · IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications · doi:10.1109/38.7762 · Cited by 117 · see citing works
Evaluation and analysis of users' activity organization
Bannon, L. J., Cypher, A., Greenspan, S. L., & Monty, M. L. (1983) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/800045.801580 · Cited by 115 · see citing works
Kandogan, E., & Shneiderman, B. (1997) · doi:10.1145/258549.258720 · Cited by 115 · see citing works
A multiple, virtual-workspace interface to support user task switching
Card, S. K., & Henderson, A. (1986) · ACM SIGCHI Bulletin · doi:10.1145/1165387.30860 · Cited by 114 · see citing works
A comparison of tiled and overlapping windows
Bly, S. A., & Rosenberg, J. K. (1986) · ACM SIGCHI Bulletin · doi:10.1145/22339.22356 · Cited by 106 · see citing works
A comparison of tiled and overlapping windows
Bly, S. A., & Rosenberg, J. K. (1986) · ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) · doi:10.1145/22627.22356 · Cited by 104 · see citing works
Smith, G., Baudisch, P., Robertson, G. G., Czerwinski, M. P., Meyers, B. R., ROBBINS, D. W., & Andrews, D. E. (2003) · Cited by 98 · see citing works
Self-citationA multiple, virtual-workspace interface to support user task switching
Card, S. K., & Henderson, A. (1986) · doi:10.1145/29933.30860 · Cited by 92 · see citing works
Dynamic space management for user interfaces
Bell, B. A., & Feiner, S. (2000) · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) · doi:10.1145/354401.354790 · Cited by 85 · see citing works
Methodology of Window Management
Hopgood, F. R. A., Duce, D. A., Fielding, E. V. C., et al. (1986) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-70919-7 · Cited by 43 · see citing works
Window Interfaces A Taxonomy of Window Manager User Interfaces
Myers, B. A. (1988) · Cited by 24 · see citing works
UMEA: User-Monitoring Environment for Activities
Kaptelinin, V. (2000) · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Code bubbles: a working set-based interface for code understanding and maintenance
Bragdon, A., Zeleznik, R., Reiss, S. P., Karumuri, S., Cheung, W., Kaplan, J., Coleman, C., Adeputra, F., & LaViola, J. J. (2010) · Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/1753326.1753706 · Cited by 174 · see citing works
SWISH: semantic analysis of window titles and switching history
Oliver, N., Smith, G., Thakkar, C., & Surendran, A. C. (2006) · Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces · doi:10.1145/1111449.1111492 · Cited by 89 · see citing works
Self-citationEvaluating Cues for Resuming Interrupted Programming Tasks
Parnin, C., & DeLine, R. (2010) · Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/1753326.1753342 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
Detecting Developers' Task Switches and Types
Meyer, A. N., Satterfield, C., Zuger, M., Kevic, K., Murphy, G. C., Zimmermann, T., & Fritz, T. (2022) · IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering · doi:10.1109/tse.2020.2984086 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
“While previous approaches, such as TaskTracer [7], Scalable Fabric [78], GroupBar [9] and Mylyn [6], allow the capturing and presentation of task context, they require the user to manually group related artifacts or manually state the start and end of a task, thus, reducing chances of long-term adoption.”
Method
- Authors
- Robertson, G., Horvitz, E., Czerwinski, M., Baudisch, P., Hutchings, D. R., Meyers, B., Robbins, D., & Smith, G.
- Affiliations
- Microsoft (United States) (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2004-05-25
- Pages
- 85-89
- OpenAlex
- W1987205431
- Cited by
- 89
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 6.79
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI) (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Interactive and Immersive Displays
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Personal Information Management and User Behavior
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Keywords
- window management, task switching, task grouping, spatial memory, user interface design
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
