FACILITIES THAT HELP THE USER TO ADAPT .
R AND D AREA 4.2 :
ADVANCED WORKSTATIONS
DESCRIPTION
THE WORKSTATION IS THE USER'S GATEWAY TO THE OFFICE SYSTEM . USER ACCEPTANCE AND USER PERFORMANCE DEPEND ON THE DESIGN OF THE CORRESPONDING MAN-MACHINE INTERFACE .
THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANNEL FOR INFORMATION INPUT TO THE USER IS THE VISUAL CHANNEL . THIS CHANNEL , AS WELL AS THE OTHER SENSORY CHANNELS , HAVE EVOLVED TO PROVIDE INFORMATION FOR MOTORIC ACTIVITIES WHICH SHOULD NOT BE SUPPRESSED BUT ADEQUATELY INTEGRATED IN OPERATING THE INTERFACE . IN CONSEQUENCE , VDUS AND TOUCH KEYBOARDS WILL EMERGE TO FORM AN INTEGRATED INPUT/OUTPUT DEVICE SUITABLE TO MANIPULATE TEXT AND IMAGES BY DIRECT MANUAL ACCESS . PREFERABLY THE SCREENS SHOULD HAVE THE DIMENSIONS AND PORTABILITY OF PAPER ( ELECTRONIC PAPER ) . ANOTHER APPROACH TO A MORE COMFORTABLE " VISUAL INPUT " WILL BE THE LARGE SCREEN DISPLAY . THE NEED FOR MULTI-FUNCTIONAL CAPABILITIES WILL REQUIRE THE DEVELOPMENT OF DEVICES WHICH ALLOW GRAPHIC INPUT AND EDITING , ON-LINE-HANDWRITING AND IDEOGRAMMATIC CONVERSATION .
AS LONG AS THERE IS NO PORTABLE PAPERLIKE DISPLAY , PRINTING WILL BE NECESSARY AND THE NEED WILL BE GROWING FOR FASTER MORE VERSATILE ( TEXT , GRAPHIC , COLOUR ) PRINTERS AT LOW COST .
A HIGH PROPORTION OF TELEPHONE OR FACE-TO-FACE COMMUNICATION INDICATES THAT VISUAL AND SPOKEN INFORMATION WILL BE PREFERRED WHENEVER IT IS APPLICABLE . VISUAL COMMUNICATION WILL REQUIRE THE DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH DEFINITION COLOUR VIDEO SCANNING DEVICES WITH THE NECESSARY PROCESSING CAPABILITIES FOR EFFICIENT STORAGE AND TRANSMISSION AND THE USE OF THE MULTIFUNCTION FLAT PANEL DISPLAY .
THE ACOUSTIC CHANNEL CANNOT HANDLE AS MUCH INFORMATION AS THE OPTICAL CHANNEL BUT IS OUR MOST EFFICIENT MEANS OF INFORMATION TRANSMISSION . ACOUSTICAL COMMUNICATION WILL REQUIRE THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOPHISTICATED PROCESSING FOR IMPROVING THE ACOUSTIC ENVIRONMENT , AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CODING SCHEMES . VOICE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MAN AND THE OFFICE SYSTEM WILL REQUIRE THE DEVELOPMENT OF EFFICIENT SPEECH RECOGNITION AND OF A NATURAL SPEECH SYNTHESIZER .
AN IMPORTANT ASPECT OF FACILITATING THE STANDARDIZATION OF THE INTERFACE WITH THE HUMAN WORLD AND THE PAPER WORLD IS EASY-TO-USE FORMALIZED LANGUAGES . THESE ARE TO BE DESIGNED IN A WAY WHICH ALLOWS THE USER , RATHER THAN THE COMPUTER PROFESSIONAL , TO SPECIFY HIS NEEDS DIRECTLY TO THE SYSTEM .
THE DEVELOPMENTS OF SPECIFIC WORKSTATION COMPONENTS SHOULD LEAD TO A GENERAL ARCHITECTURE WHICH WILL ALLOW THE INTEGRATION OF THE SUBSYSTEMS IN AN ARCHITECTURALLY HOMOGENEOUS WORKSTATION .
R AND D TOPICS
THE FOLLOWING R AND D TOPICS ARE IDENTIFIED :
4.2.1 . SYSTEM ASPECTS OF WORKSTATION DESIGN ( 4 )
4.2.2 . VISION INTERFACE
- FLAT PANEL DISPLAYS ,
- HIGH RESOLUTION VIDEO SCANNER ,
- IMAGE CODING ( 4 ) ;
4.2.3 . PAPER INTERFACE
- ADVANCED SCANNER ( 4 ) ,
- ADVANCED PRINTER ( 4 ) ,
- GRAPHICS CODING ( 4 ) ,
- GRAPHICS RECOGNITION ( 4 ) ;
4.2.4 . SPEECH INTERFACE
- SPEECH CODING ( 4 ) ,
- SPEECH RECOGNITION ( 4