Phidgets: Easy Development of Physical Interfaces through Physical Widgets

Greenberg, S. and Fitchett, C. (2001)
Phidgets: Easy Development of Physical Interfaces through Physical Widgets. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology - ACM UIST'01. (Orlando, Florida), ACM Press, pages 209-218, November 11-14. Best paper award. Earlier version as report 2001-686-09.

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Abstract

Physical widgets or phidgets are to physical user interfaces what widgets are to graphical user interfaces. Similar to widgets, phidgets abstract and package input and output devices: they hide implementation and construction details, they expose functionality through a well-defined API, and they have an (optional) on-screen interactive interface for displaying and controlling device state. Unlike widgets, phidgets also require: a connection manager to track how devices appear on-line; a way to link a software phidget with its physical counterpart; and a simulation mode to allow the programmer to develop, debug and test a physical interface even when no physical device is present. Our evaluation shows that everyday programmers using phidgets can rapidly develop physical interfaces.

Bibtex entry

@INPROCEEDINGS { 2001-Phidgets.UIST,
CLASS = { CONFARTICLE },
AUTHOR = { Greenberg, S. and Fitchett, C. },
TITLE = { Phidgets: Easy Development of Physical Interfaces through Physical Widgets },
BOOKTITLE = { Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology - ACM UIST'01 },
PAGES = { 209-218 },
YEAR = { 2001 },
MONTH = { November 11-14 },
PUBLISHER = { ACM Press },
ADDRESS = { Orlando, Florida },
NOTE = { Best paper award. Earlier version as report 2001-686-09 },
}