The User Interface consists of:
-
A User window, which accepts input when focus is on the window
(usually when the mouse or pointer device is in (or clicked in) this
window).
-
A number of other-participant windows, which show the text the
other participants are typing.
-
A control window to show join/leave and participant information such
as bids to gain the floor and the current floor sequence.
-
A set of buttons/display panels for expressing out of band human
communication such as warnings/threats and so forth.
The part of a conferencing system that has been most interesting to
researchers in the past has been the user interface point of view.
A great deal of work has been done on multi-media user interface
design which we have not attempted to cover here.
However, in a simple text based conferencing system, a number of
interesting problems and possibilities arise. This is discussed in the
section that follows.