UIMS support for direct manipulation interfaces

Abstract

Recently direct manipulation interfaces have received a lot of attention. The direct manipulation paradigm seems to offer significant advantages, particularly for novice users. In this paper we will consider what direct manipulation is, what this means to user interface management systems, and what we should do about it. We will conclude that to support direct manipulation, syntax should be de-emphasized and decentralized, the presentation component of the system should be made more flexible than most exiting systems, and feedback, particularly semantic feedback, is very important and should be supported in a much more automatic fashion.