Metawidgets: towards a theory of multimodal interface design

The authors analyze two intertwined and fundamental issues concerning computer-to-human communication in the multimodal interface; the interplay between sound and graphics, and the role of object persistence. The observations lead to metawidgets as abstract entities capable of manifesting themselves to users as image, as sound, or as various combinations and/or sequences of the two media. The authors show examples of metawidgets in action and discuss mechanisms for choosing among alternative media for metawidget instantiation. Two experimental microworlds implemented to explore these ideas are described