Tool support for cooperative object-oriented design: gesture based modelling on an electronic whiteboard

ABSTRACT

Modeling is important in object-oriented software development. Although a number of Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools are available, and even though some are technically advanced, few developers use them. This paper describes our attempt to examine the requirements needed to provide tool support for the development process, and describes and evaluates a tool, Knight, which has been developed based on these requirements. The tool is based on a direct, whiteboard-like interaction achieved using gesture input on a large electronic whiteboard. So far the evaluations have been successful and the tool shows the potential of greatly enhancing current support for object-oriented modeling.

REFERENCES

• 1: Gregory D. Abowd , Christopher G. Atkeson , Ami Feinstein , Cindy Hmelo , Rob Kooper , Sue Long , Nitin Sawhney , Mikiya Tani, Teaching and learning as multimedia authoring: the classroom 2000 project, Proceedings of the fourth ACM international conference on Multimedia, p.187-198, November 18-22, 1996, Boston, Massachusetts, United States [doi>10.1145/244130.244191]
• 2: Benjamin B. Bederson , James D. Hollan, Pad++: a zooming graphical interface for exploring alternate interface physics, Proceedings of the 7th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, p.17-26, November 02-04, 1994, Marina del Rey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/192426.192435]
• 3: S. A. Bly , S. L. Minneman, Commune: a shared drawing surface, Proceedings of the ACM SIGOIS and IEEE CS TC-OA conference on Office information systems, p.184-192, April 25-27, 1990, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
• 4: Sara A. Bly , Steve R. Harrison , Susan Irwin, Media spaces: bringing people together in a video, audio, and computing environment, Communications of the ACM, v.36 n.1, p.28-46, Jan. 1993 [doi>10.1145/151233.151235]
• 5: Juhani Iivari, Why are CASE tools not used?, Communications of the ACM, v.39 n.10, p.94-103, Oct. 1996 [doi>10.1145/236156.236183]
• 6: Janecek, P., Ratzer, A.V., Mackay, W.E. Redesigning Design/CPN: Integrating Interaction and Petri Nets in Use. Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Practical Use of Coloured Petri Nets and Design/CPN, 1990, 119-133.
• 7: Stan Jarzabek , Riri Huang, The case for user-centered CASE tools, Communications of the ACM, v.41 n.8, p.93-99, Aug. 1998 [doi>10.1145/280324.280338]
• 8: Chris F. Kemerer, How the Learning Curve Affects CASE Tool Adoption, IEEE Software, v.9 n.3, p.23-28, May 1992 [doi>10.1109/52.136161 ]
• 9: Kraut, R., Fish, R., Root, R., Chalfonte, B. Informal Communication in Organizations: Form, Function and Technology. Groupware and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. 1993, 287-314.
• 10: Gordon Paul Kurtenbach, The design and evaluation of marking menus, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont., Canada, 1993
• 11: James A. Landay , Brad A. Myers, Interactive sketching for the early stages of user interface design, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.43-50, May 07-11, 1995, Denver, Colorado, United States [doi>10.1145/223904.223910]
• 12: Kalle Lytinen , Veli-Pekka Tahvananinen, Next Generation Case Tools, IOS Press, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1992
• 13: Ole Lehrmann Madsen , Birger Mø-Pedersen , Kristen Nygaard, Object-oriented programming in the BETA programming language, ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1993
• 14: McLennan, M.J. {incr Tcl}: Object-Oriented Programming. In Proceedings of the Tcl/Tk Workshop, University of California at Berkeley, June 10-11, 1993.
• 15: Thomas P. Moran , Patrick Chiu , Steve Harrison , Gordon Kurtenbach , Scott Minneman , William van Melle, Evolutionary engagement in an ongoing collaborative work process: a case study, Proceedings of the 1996 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, p.150-159, November 16-20, 1996, Boston, Massachusetts, United States [doi>10.1145/240080.240243]
• 16: Thomas P. Moran , William van Melle , Patrick Chiu, Tailorable domain objects as meeting tools for an electronic whiteboard, Proceedings of the 1998 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, p.295-304, November 14-18, 1998, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/289444.289504]
• 17: Mynatt, E.D. The Writing on the Wall. Proceedings of 1NTERA CT'99, 1999, 196-204.
• 18: Elizabeth D. Mynatt , Takeo Igarashi , W. Keith Edwards , Anthony LaMarca, Flatland: new dimensions in office whiteboards, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: the CHI is the limit, p.346-353, May 15-20, 1999, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/302979.303108]
• 19: John K. Ousterhout, Tcl and the Tk toolkit, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1994
• 20: Elin Rønby Pedersen , Kim McCall , Thomas P. Moran , Frank G. Halasz, Tivoli: an electronic whiteboard for informal workgroup meetings, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.391-398, April 24-29, 1993, Amsterdam, The Netherlands [doi>10.1145/169059.169309]
• 21: Dean Rubine, Specifying gestures by example, Proceedings of the 18th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.329-337, July 1991
• 22: James Rumbaugh , Ivar Jacobson , Grady Booch, The Unified Modeling Language reference manual, Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd., Essex, UK, 1998
• 23: Russell, F. The case for CASE. Software Engineering: A European Perspective. Thayer, R., McGettrick, A. (Eds.) IEEE Computer Society Press, 1993, 531-547.
• 24: Pierre Wellner , Wendy Mackay , Rich Gold, Back to the real world, Communications of the ACM, v.36 n.7, p.24-27, July 1993 [doi>10.1145/159544.159555]
• 25: http://www.daimi.au.dk/~knight
• 26: http://www.smarttech.com
• 27: http://www.microgold.com
• 28: http://www.cit.dk
• 29: http://www.cit.dk/COT
• 30: http://www.mjolner.com
• 31: http://www.daimi.au.dk/CPnets/CPN2000
• 32: http://desarte.tuwien.ac.at/

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.1 PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques
          Subjects: Computer-aided software engineering (CASE)

  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
      I.2.0 General
          Subjects: Cognitive simulation
        I.2.10 Vision and Scene Understanding
            Subjects: Modeling and recovery of physical attributes

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Management, Performance, Theory

Keywords:
CASE tools, cooperative design, electronic whiteboards, gesture input, object-oriented modeling, user study