Bridging the Paper-Digital Divide

CSCW Seminar

Beat Signer
Global Information Systems Research Group
Institute for Information Systems
Department for Computer Science, ETH Zurich

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007

Lecture Schedule

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 2

 Student Projects
▪ Basic technologies and infrastructure
▪ iGesture recognition framework (www.igesture.org)
▪ integration of different tracking technologies
▪ iServer resource plug-ins, …
▪ Paper-based applications
▪ PaperPoint, paper-based interface to digital
agenda/todo list (e.g. Outlook), paper-digital
notebook, paper-digital photo album, …

We offer Master and Semester projects and are also looking for Hilfsassistenten

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 3

The Paperless Office (1975)

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 4

The "Paperless Office" (2003)

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 5

Worldwide Paper Consumption
Per capita consumption
of paper and board by
region, 1989 and 1999
Source: The Paper
Federation of Great
Britain, Nov 2000

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 6

The Myth of the Paperless Office
▪ For decades, people have predicted the
office of the future as a paperless office
▪ documents generated, published and
distributed electronically
▪ documents read electronically

▪ What has happened to this

imminent revolution?

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 7

Affordances of Paper
▪ The physical properties of an object determine
how people use that object
▪ Properties of paper
▪ light, flexible, robust, porous, opaque, transparent, ….
▪ Human actions
▪ grasping, folding, tearing, carrying, writing, on ….
▪ Paper supports forms of collaboration and
interaction difficult to mimic in the digital world

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 8

Working Together with Paper

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 9

Spatial Layout of Documents

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 10

The History of Paper
▪ 3000 BC
▪ papyrus produced in Egypt
▪ AD 105
▪ paper invented in China (wood pulp)
▪ 610
▪ paper imported to Japan

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 11

The History of Paper …
▪ 1120
▪ arab traders bring paper to Europe
▪ first paper mill in europe (Spain)
▪ 1440
▪ Johannes Gutenberg develops the printing press
▪ increasing demand for paper
▪ 19th century
▪ paper gets cheaper (new paper making machines)

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 12

Paper and Digital Media
Paper Digital Media
readability interactivity
portability dynamic presentation
cheap search functionality
flicking through pages easy to update
multiple documents with spatial order typsetting systems
persistency fast distribution
privacy/security storing large amounts of data
… …

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 13

"As We May Think" (1945)

Vannevar Bush
The Atlantic Monthly
July 1945

memex (memory extender)

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 14
Integrating Paper and Digital Media
▪ Complementary character of paper and digital
information
Time has only confirmed this early indication of paper’s importance
in the digital office. While other print technologies have come to
compete with it, laser printer sales have increased twelve-fold in the
past decade. If the digital office from PARC to the present is anything
to go by, bits and atoms, the digital and the material, don’t seem so
much in opposition as in tandem. Despite confident claims that their
only relationship is one of replacement and dismissal, the two look
much more like complementary resources.
The Social Life of Information, Brown and Duguid, 2002

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 15

Augmenting the Physical Space
▪ Embedding computing functionality in everyday
objects instead of digitising the physical
environment
At breakfast Sal reads the news. She still prefers the paper form, as do
most people. She spots an interesting quote from a columnist in the
business section. She wipes her pen over the newspaper’s name, date,
section, and page number and then circles the quote. The pen sends a
message to the paper, which transmits the quote to her office.

The Computer for the 21st Century, Weiser, 1991

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 16

Paper-Digital Integration Technologies
▪ Document (object) identification / tracking
▪ barcodes
▪ RFID tags
▪ optical tracking
▪ …

▪ Within-document position tracking

▪ relative/absolute positions
▪ support for mobility
▪ …

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 17

Paper-Digital Integration Technologies …
▪ Writing capture
▪ optical approaches (e.g. scanner)
▪ position tracking
▪ …
▪ Within-document information encoding
▪ positional information
▪ arbitrary digital information (e.g. sound clips)
▪ …

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 18

Paper-Digital Integration Technologies …
▪ Electronic paper
▪ electronic ink (E-ink)
▪ electrochromic displays (e.g. from Acreo)
▪ electrowetting
▪ …

▪ E-books
▪ Sony LIBRIé eBook reader (based on E-ink)
▪ …

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 19

Augmented Paper Applications
▪ Reading
▪ links to additional digital information and services
▪ digital links between paper documents
▪ …
▪ Writing
▪ enhanced paper-based notebooks (e.g. with audio
capture)
▪ paper-based form filling (e.g. FAS, Hewlett Packard)
▪ …

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 20

Augmented Paper Applications …
▪ Annotation
▪ proofreading of documents
▪ annotation of research papers
▪ …
▪ Paper-based user interfaces
▪ Palette and PaperPoint
▪ Video Mosaic
▪ …

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 21

Cross-Media Publishing
▪ BBC Blue Planet series
▪ television series
- available on video/DVD
▪ book
▪ web site
- fact files
- quizzes
- games
▪ Open University course book and CD

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 22

Digital/Physical Document Lifecycle
▪ Multiple digital/physical editing iteration cycles
▪ Digital and paper-based user interface
▪ Support for collaborative editing

Digital Document

Printed Document

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 23

Bridging the Paper-Digital Divide
▪ Many projects focus on the input device, paper,
printing and other hardware technologies rather
than on the data integration and information
management aspects → isolated solutions
▪ The linking of paper tends to be based on
physical rather than logical concepts → not easy
to change to another input device technology

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 24

Bridging the Paper-Digital Divide …
▪ "The key to a highly integrated interactive paper
solution lies in the introduction of a platform for
general cross-media information management
introducing fundamental link concepts in
combination with other database functionality"
▪ Support all possible types of links between
paper and digital media
▪ paper-to-digital, digital-to-paper, digital-to-digital and
paper-to-paper
CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 25
Palette

▪ Control of electronic slide-shows by manipulating

physical cards

Nelson et al.

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 26

FieldMouse (Absolute Mouse)

▪ Combination of an ID recognizer (e.g. barcode reader)

and a mouse detecting relative movement of the device
▪ Used in IconStickers, Scroll Browser and Active Book
projects
Tamagawa University, Tokyo, Japan

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 27

Active Book

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 28

DigitalDesk

▪ "Instead of making the workstation more like a desk,

make the desk more like a workstation"

Wellner, EuroPARC

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 29

Listen Reader

▪ Combines the look and feel of a real book with an

interactive soundtrack
▪ Electric field sensors in the book binding
▪ RFID tags embedded in each page
CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 30
Quicktionary

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 31

Datasound Strip-Reader

Datasound strip

▪ Two-dimensional matrix code

▪ Digital information (sound, text, images, etc.) can be
encoded in strips

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 32

Electronic Paper

Sony LIBRIé eBook Reader

TOPPAN wall-sized electronic

paper display, Expo 2005, Japan Citizen curved watch
CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 33
Video Mosaic

▪ Use paper storyboards to control an on-line video editing

system
▪ Based on the EVA system developed at MIT

Mackay and Pagani

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 34

LeapPad

▪ "Magic pen" uncovers the sounds and words on the page

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 35

FLY Pentop Computer
▪ Everything integrated into
the pen
▪ Voice feedback
▪ Applications on cartridges
▪ english to spanish translator
▪ calculator (draw interface)
▪ ...

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 36

Tourists and Maps
▪ Previsit
▪ activity planning
▪ layout and social zones of city
▪ Visit
▪ locator, proximity, navigation and event tasks
▪ Postvisit
▪ share experience with family and friends

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 37

Edinburgh Fringe Festival
▪ World's largest
international arts festival
▪ 4 weeks
▪ ~1700 events
▪ ~27000 performances

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 38

EdFest Components

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 39

EdFest Booklet

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 40

EdFest User Trials

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 41

References
▪ Fundamental Concepts for Interactive Paper and
Cross-Media Information Spaces, B. Signer,
Diss ETH Zurich Nr. 16218, 2006
▪ The Myth of the Paperless Office, A.J. Sellen
and R. Harper, MIT Press, November 2001
▪ Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext and the
Remediation of Print, J.D. Bolter, Second
Edition, 2001

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 42

References …
▪ Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents
in the Digital Age, D.M. Levy, Arcade Publishing,
October 2001
▪ How to Read a Book, M.J. Adler and C. Van
Doren, Revised Edition, Simon and Schuster,
New York, 1972
▪ As We May Think, V. Bush, Atlantic Monthly,
July 1945

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 43

Next Lecture
▪ May 8, Technologies I : Augmented Paper
▪ Document Tracking, Mario Deuss
▪ Within-Document Information Encoding, Philip Stutz

CSCW Seminar 2007, March 27, 2007 Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 44