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New: ICON release 0.3b is out.

What is ICON ?

Using a keyboard, a mouse, and a stereotyped set of interaction techniques has been for years the universal way of interacting with computers. Since then, prolific research work has proved that alternative input methods can make the interaction more natural, more efficient, or more appropriate for specific tasks, or for specific user skills and handicaps.

Unfortunately, very few commercial applications use novel input methods. Graphical toolkits and interactive applications that are built on top of them still exclusively rely on mice and keyboards. Problems related to input management have been little studied, though their relevance and their importance are today universally admitted in HCI community. In our PhD thesis, we address the problem with an original approach, and propose a model for describing input methods with cascading reactive devices.

Using ICon Using ICon

ICON (Input Configurator) is a novel system for making input-reconfigurable interactive applications, based on cascading reactive devices. It allows programmers to test and validate a large number of dedicated input methods. It also allows power users to customize those methods to suit their needs. Many application domains would strongly benefit from relying on such a system, including 3D authoring, virtual reality, computer games, accessibility for disabled users, wearable and mobile computing, and embedded systems.

ICON is implemented in Java. It is still under development, but you can try it by downloading an alpha release. ICON is currently used in the Gina project for developing MAriNA II and Svalabard multimodal user interfaces.


ICON sources & FAQ


Publications on ICON & related

(some references still need to be completed)

Contact

Pierre Dragicevic
Jean-Daniel Fekete