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Example UI Specification Chapters 6 and 7 in Designing From Both Sides of the Screen offer some information about writing a user interface specification, and page 169 refers you to these Web pages to see what the Hubbub UI Spec looked like. This is the Spec as it stood part-way through the project, and it is meant to illustrate one way of writing a UI Spec. If you download and run Hubbub, you will see that it does not match this Spec exactly, and in some places it is quite different. This is what the Spec looked like about 6-10 months after the project began in November, 1999, after about two revisions and before many features had changed based on the usage study. Still, it is a reasonably good example of a UI Spec as a living document that reflects the current state of the design and keeps track of the pending issues to be resolved. Each page of this Spec indicates the date it was last modified. As the design changed, we updated that part of the Spec, so you'll see that the last-modified dates vary. Including a last-modified date tells the responsible engineers how current the information is likely to be. If it is very old, they should check with the UI designer to see if anything has changed before starting to code. Hubbub Overview By Ellen Isaacs This page last updated: June 14, 2000 Hubbub main screen Hubbub is a wireless and desktop application that supports awareness and very lightweight communication among people who are distributed and/or on the go. It runs on a Palm V connected to the network via modem and on a PC desktop. Hubbub makes extensive use of sounds to enable people to hear (as well as see) when other people become active or idle on their computers or Palms. This gives them a background level of awareness of who's doing what and when someone might be available for an interaction. Hubbub also lets people send text instant messages to each other between Palms and/or desktops. And it supports a novel concept of "Sound Instant Messages," short "earcons," or strings of notes, with simple meanings that help people coordinate or simply keep them in touch. Examples of such messages are "hi," "Want to go to lunch?" or "Ready to go?" Sounds are also used to identify people; everyone chooses a "Sound ID," which accompanies both awareness information and sound messages. This lets people simply hear that "Bonnie says hello" or "Bonnie just became active on her work computer," without having to look at the device. This specification is a detailed description of the user interface design for version 1. Ideas for version 2 are noted, but are meant to indicate a direction and not a full design. This document will continue to be updated as the design evolves; each page of the document indicates the date on which it was most recently updated.