Presentation of the PuReWidgets toolkit (http://purewidgets.org) at the Interactive Art group of CITAR. Nov 26, 2012

1. The PuReWidgets toolkit for interactive
public display applications
Jorge Cardoso
jorgecardoso@ieee.org!
26 Nov 2012!

2. Interactive
display

3. Motivation
Interaction in Public Displays
• Every display uses its own approach
• Wasted development effort
• Users face inconsistent interaction models
We can learn from the desktop platform
• GUIs faced similar problems
3

4. Requirements
The toolkit should support
• Multiple, extensible, PD-specific controls
• Various input mechanisms and
modalities
• Concurrent interaction
• Asynchronous interaction
• Graphical representations

5. PD-specific controls
Interaction with public
displays is different
from desktop
We need specific
controls for public
displays

6. Various input mechanisms

7. Concurrent/shared interaction
• Multiple users
• No single user
controlling the
display

8. Asynchronous interaction
• Supports interaction even if an application
is off-screen

9. PuReWidgets
Widget-based toolkit for supporting
interactions in public displays
• For web-based PD applications
• A widget represents an interactive feature.
– Is represented by a class in an object-oriented
programming model.
– Applications instantiate widgets and receive
interaction events via a callback function
9

10. Features
• Various types of controls
– Action, Options, Text entry, Download, Upload, Check-in
• Supports various input mechanisms
– SMS, Bluetooth naming, QR codes, email, touch (with
limitations)
• Automatically generates GUIs for desktop and mobile
devices
• User identification in input events
• Asynchronous events
• Graphical representations for widgets
• Client and server application models

11. PuReWidgets Architecture
11

12. PuReWidgets Implementation
• Google Appengine (server)
• Google Web Toolkit – GWT (client)
• Takes advantage of well-known
development environment, and user base
12

13. Initial development
• Continuous
refinement cycle
– Develop interactive
PD applications
– Gain insight
– Refine the toolkit
– Refactor the
applications
13

14. Evaluation
• Threefold
– Personal experience in developing 3
applications
– Programmers’ evaluation of the toolkit
– Audience users’ perception of the interaction/
application model on a real world deployment
14

15. Conclusion
We have now a complete interaction system for
public display applications
• Web-based
– “Easy” development
• Various widgets
– Supporting diverse interactions
• Multi-user
– Supporting simultaneous, shared interactions
• Multiple input mechanisms
– From web-based, QR codes, to SMS
• Async input
– To support offline interactions and various application models
15

16. Future work/Ideas
Toolkit development
Javascript/jQuery library
Output widgets for PD
Remote, Direct manipulation widgets
“Native” apps with phonegap
Third-party check-ins
More flexible application scheduling
16

17. Future work/Ideas
Other ideas
Interactive narratives for public displays
Application coordination between displays
Android/iOS “Open-in”/”Share to” Public display near you
PD App: users upload content that they can later request the
display to show
Interactive marketing
How to effectively communicate interactivity
Guidelines for content creation
Wordpress plugin for content creation
“Place” representations
Who’s around app
17

18. The
PuReWidgets
toolkit
for
interactive
public
display
applications
Jorge
Cardoso
jorgecardoso@ieee.org!
Photo credits:
Bluetooth photo: creative commons (Flickr user ‘dhaun’) | Touch-screen: creative commons (Flickr user ‘Happydog’)
Locamoda app: creative commons (Flickr user ‘gumption’) | Widgets panel: GFDL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Widgets.png)