What is Popout Prism? Popout Prism is an intuitive, elegant tool
to reduce the amount of time users spend looking for information in Web
pages. By creating visual "popouts" that emphasize critical
elements in Web pages, Popout Prism draws users attention to the
right information.
How does it work? Using perceptual design principles based
on PARC research into visual attention, Popout Prism makes critical information
"pop out" from the background Web page.
Users operate Popout Prism as they would operate any other Web browser,
entering URLs and following links as usual. To make critical information
pop out, the user enters keywords. Popout Prism enhances those keywords
in the Web page as well as in an enhanced thumbnail overview. Users can
quickly scan the enhanced document to find relevant content.
Popout Prism features
Heres a look at some of the key features of the Popout Prism browser:
"Overview" (left side of Popout Prism): an enhanced
thumbnail which gives an overview of the Web page shown in the detail
view.
"Sliding window" (dotted rectangle on the overview): a
sliding window that can be used as a scrollbar to navigate to different
parts of the Web page shown in the detail view.
"Detail view" (right side of Popout Prism): a full-size
view of a Web page that can be enhanced with popouts.
To see the Popout Prism browser in action,
view this short video demo. Popout Prism Demo mpg (27mb)
Popout Prism was tested internally by technical and non-technical users
during a normal work week. The perceptual design principles were effective:
Popout Prism users were able to quickly find information, and they preferred
the Popout Prism interface to traditional "find" and highlighting
techniques.
Can popouts be used in other ways?
Popout Prism is an experimental Web browser that showcases
PARCs popout technology. This same functionality could also
be included in many other tools, such as knowledge management
solutions or code development environments. In the future, we
may release a toolkit for generating enhanced thumbnails.
If you would be interested in being a pilot user for such a
toolkit, please send a note to popoutprism-support@parc.com.