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TimeScape: A Time Machine for the Desktop Environment

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Jun Rekimoto at The University of Tokyo
Jun Rekimoto
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Abstract

This paper describes a new desktop metaphor/system called TimeScape. A user of TimeScape can spatially arrange information on the desktop. Any desktop item can be removed at any time, and the system supports time-travel to the past or the future of the desktop. The combination of spatial information arrangement and chronological navigation allows the user to organize and archive electric information without being bothered by document folders or file classification problems.
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TimeScape: A Time Machine for the Desktop Environment
Jun Rekimoto
Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.
3-14-13 Higashigotanda
Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 141-0022 JAPAN
+81 3 5448 4380
rekimoto@acm.org, http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/rekimoto.html
ABSTRACT
This paper describes a new desktop metaphor/system
called TimeScape. A user of TimeScape can spatially
arrange information on the desktop. Any desktop item can
be removed at any time, and the system supports time-
travel to the past or the future of the desktop. The
combination of spatial information arrangement and
chronological navigation allows the user to organize and
archive electric information without being bothered by
document folders or file classification problems.
Keywords
Desktop environment, information organization,
chronological navigation, information visualization
INTRODUCTION
We always have trouble with organizing electronic
information. We often have difficulty in finding files. It is
quite painful and often simply impossible to correctly
classify documents into the specific folders (many
documents belong to more than one category).
Management of digitized data (e.g., phonographs or audio)
is even more problematic because there is no easy way to
search for them.
Malone et al. observed that people spatially organize
documents on their real desktop [1]. Mander et al.
proposed a ‘Pile’ metaphor, where files can be piled on the
computer desktop, for casual organization of information
[2]. We also observed that many users prefer to place icons
directly on the desktop without using document folders.
On the other hand, Freeman et al. argued that a time-
ordered system (called the “Lifestreams”) is a more
suitable metaphor for information organization and
archiving [3].
We consider that these two solutions are not exclusive, but
complementary. Our primary idea is to take the
advantages of both, by combining a spatial metaphor with
a chronological navigation mechanism, in other words, to
create a time machine for the desktop environment. This
paper briefly introduces our initial design of the time-
machine desktop system called TimeScape.
DESKTOP AS A TIME-MACHINE
Figure 1 shows a typical screenshot of the TimeScape
desktop. There are no folders in this environment. All the
items (file icons, application icons, PostIt notes, and
digital images) are directly placed on the desktop. The
user can launch applications or open documents by double-
clicking them. Desktop items can be spatially arranged to
organize information (e.g., place related objects closer to
form a group). Note that PostIt notes gradually fade over
time, to subtlety indicate their duration.
In addition to these basic functions, TimeScape supports
the time-travel of the desktop. By manipulating a time-
travel dial (top-right part of the screen), the user can
change the time of the desktop. The system restores the
state of the desktop according to the designated time. The
system also provides “go back” and “go forward” buttons
(appear as arrow buttons on the toolbar) for event-based
navigation. For example, pressing the “go back” button
brings a user to the most recent time when any desktop
change has occurred (item creation, deletion, etc.). The
user can also select a desktop object and go to the time
when that object was created or deleted.
When the user feels some documents are not immediately
necessary, the user simply can remove them from the
desktop by dragging them to the trashcan. Since all the
information is permanently maintained, the user can
always retrieve removed data by travelling to the “past” of
the desktop. This capability supports the effective usage of
the desktop real estate; the user can keep the number of
desktop objects organized, by removing unnecessary
objects. This feature is particularly suitable for
maintaining “To-do” items on the desktop.
The user can also travel to the “future” to make a schedule.
It becomes a reminder; because scheduled objects
automatically appear on the desktop at the arrival of the
appointed time.
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To support travelling over time, the system provides a
“timeline” view (Figure 2). In this view, the current
desktop is represented as a semi-transparent slanted
rectangle on the middle of the screen, and the left and
right parts visualize the “past” and “future” of the desktop.
The desktop and timeline views are switched with
animated transition to show the connection between them.
The user can change the timeline scale to browse what is
happening during a day, a week, or any time in the user’s
entire lifetime.
Information search over time and space
Combining the above features, TimeScape can be seen as a
space-time continuum of the user’s activities. To search
information from this continuum, the user enters keywords
in the text entry box and presses a “search forward” or a
“search backward” button. The system travels over time to
the past or to the future until finding an object. Then, the
user looks at nearby objects (in terms of space and time) by
switching desktop and timeline views. Figure 3 shows the
result of the search “kyoto”. Thanks to the attached PostIt
note containing “Kyoto”, the user can find a picture of the
temple, even though the system does not understand image
contents.
CURRENT STATUS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The current version of TimeScape is written in Java and
supports drag-and-drop objects to and from native
environments such as Windows 98. This version has been
used for about three month by our group, and the initial
responses were quite positive. We are currently preparing
more formal usability evaluations.
Aside from the information management system for office
workers, TimeScape should also be quite suitable for home
users. TimeScape displays on the wall in the living room
or on the refrigerator’s door could be used to keep daily
housekeeping information as well as the family’s history.
There are many ways to extend TimeScape’s concept. We
are planning to combine external time-ordered information
sources, such as news or weather information on the World
Wide Web. We are also considering a facility of
synchronizing information among different devices (such
as PDAs or voice note devices) and TimeScape desktops,
using time as a primary key.
REFERENCES
1. Thomas W. Malone. How do people organize their
desks? Implications for the design of office information
systems. in ACM Trans. On Office Systems, 1(1) 99-
112, 1983.
2. Richard Mander, Gitta Salomon, and Yin Yin Wong.
A ‘Pile’ Metaphor for Supporting Casual Organization
of Information, in Proc. of CHI’92, 627-634, 1992.
3. Eric T. Freeman and Scott J. Fertig. Lifestreams:
Organizing your electronic life. in AAAI Fall
Symposium; AI Applications in Knowledge Navigation
and Retrieval, 1995.
time travel dialnavigation buttons text search box search string (“kyoto”)
found object
picture of Kyoto Temple
Figure 3: Information search over timeFigure 1: A screenshot of the TimeScape desktop
Figure 2: A timeline view of the desktop
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The "Web," an attempt to organize the electronic world, has become the focus of a wide range of research activities from agents to information retrieval to virtual reality systems, and is a central focus of work presented at this symposium. Our work considers a more humble task: that of organizing our own electronic lives. We introduce a new metaphor, Lifestreams, for dynamically organizing a user's personal files, electronic mail, schedules, rolodex and financial data. In this paper we describe our prototype Lifestreams system and in the process cover most of the topics of this symposium, including indexing, information retrieval, user interfaces, multisource integration and multimedia. 1 Introduction The work of many participants in this symposium attempts to help users navigate the thicket known as the "Web". By contrast, Lifestreams is first and foremost an approach to organizing a user's personal files. We contend that today, just managing one's own electronic world can be a fru...
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Lifestreams: Organizing your electronic life time travel dial navigation buttons text search box search string (“kyoto”) found object picture of Kyoto Temple Figure 3: Information search over timeFigure 1: A screenshot of the TimeScape desktop Figure 2: A timeline view of the desktop r
  • T Eric
  • Scott J Freeman
  • Fertig
Eric T. Freeman and Scott J. Fertig. Lifestreams: Organizing your electronic life. in AAAI Fall Symposium; AI Applications in Knowledge Navigation and Retrieval, 1995. time travel dial navigation buttons text search box search string (“kyoto”) found object picture of Kyoto Temple Figure 3: Information search over timeFigure 1: A screenshot of the TimeScape desktop Figure 2: A timeline view of the desktop r