Abstract:

A key challenge in supporting face-to-face collaborative work is e-document micro-mobility: supporting movement of digital content amongst shared display surfaces and personal devices at arbitrary levels of document granularity. Micro-mobility is a dexterity that physical paper artifacts afford - the ability to be handled with any position and placement, to be dismantled, cut and torn apart, marked up, reassembled and sorted. To support micro-mobility for electronic content and group work, we propose DocuBits and Containers. DocuBits offer the metaphor of a paper-cutter and a scanner for electronic documents. A portion of screen 'bits' from any application or any parts of visible display can be cut, grabbed, send and launched onto a different display surface or device with minimal interaction - merely three mouse/stylus click-select. Once arrived on the target display surface, DocuBits can be arbitrarily positioned, re-oriented, marked up, and pulled into other documents, or again send to other display surfaces. A Container is a composite draft of DocuBits and other documents, usually composed as the outcome of a collaborative meeting.