A Prototype User Interface for a Mobile Multimedia Terminal

Allan Christian Long, Jr., Shankar Narayananaswamy, Andrew Burstein, Richard Han, Ken Lutz, Brian Richards, Samuel Sheng, Robert W. Brodersen, Jan Rabaey.

Computer Human Interface Conference 1995

We have shown a prototype user interface for the InfoPad, a portable terminal with multi-modal input and multimedia output. We believe that many of the people who could benefit from inexpensive, portable, networked terminals are not computer experts, and we are therefore designing the InfoPad and its user interface to be more like a notebook than a workstation.

 The InfoPad’s main features are:

•Portability

•Continuous network connectivity using a high-bandwidth

radio link

•Pen input with handwriting recognition

•Audio input with speech recognition

•Full-motion video playback with synchronized audio

The InfoPad’s unique input and output characteristics offer challenges and opportunities for user interface design. We are prototyping applications and user interfaces to explore how handwriting and voice recognition may best be used together. We believe that the lessons we will learn can be applied to other multi-modal platforms.