Employing the periphery: the window as interface

Abstract

This paper describes work which employs a room's window as a location for a peripheral interface. Windows have several properties which make them well-suited to unobtrusive display including their transparency, their positive associations for people and natural peripheral use by them, and their nature as a clean and pleasing interface between spaces. We have initially explored the display of graphical weather forecasts, of activity in the space outside the window, and of historical images of the space outside the window, to augment users' sense of spatial and temporal context in their daily lives.