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Example UI Spec: Sound Instant Messages
By Ellen Isaacs
This page last updated: September 13, 2000
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| Figure P4. Bub screen |
Users can send each other Sound Instant Messages, which are short sounds that have meanings associated with them. (The sounds are currently being designed.) To send a SIM, the user taps the name of the person they wish to contact, and that person's Bub screen appears, as shown in Figure P4. This page provides some information about this bub as shown, namely their full name, their Sound ID (which users can tap to play), and whatever awareness information is available. In addition, it shows the SIM icons. [Can we have a "Sounds turned off" indicator on this page when the person is muted or blocking sounds from this person?] To send this bub a SIM, the user taps the associated icon. When they do so, if the sound reaches the server (other person?), it plays back to this user so they know the sound was sent. [Does this mean it may not reach the bub even if this user hears it play back? Did we decide to require an acknowledgement or not?] When the user sends a sound, the recipient hears first the sender's Sound ID followed by the SIM. (Note that this is the opposite of the awareness sounds, which play before the SID.) In addition, they see a visual alert of the message. Figure P5 shows what it looks like for Walendo when Nancy sends him the SIM "Ready?". The alert in the header area alternates between the two images for five seconds. Note that Walendo could be on any screen in Hubbub and he would see this alert. [We need to Figure Pout if there are any exceptions to this.] Possibly for Version 2: If the user taps on the flashing alert, then they are taken to that bub's screen so they can quickly reply to the SIM with a SIM.
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Figure P5. Visual interface for incoming SIM. Header area
alternates between two images for 5 seconds. |
If the recipient happens to be mute, the visual alert still flashes but the sound does not play. In addition, an error sound plays on the sender's device instead of the sound and the "Sounds turned off" text flashes off and on for [5] seconds. [Maybe we play a very short beep-type sound to tell them just that a message came in so they look at the screen, but don't play the sound.] If the recipient is blocking all sounds from the sender, then they do not receive the visual alert or the sound. The sender sees the same "Sounds turned off" message flashing. There is no way for the sender to tell the difference between someone who always keeps their device muted and someone who is blocking their sounds. (Over time, we expect users to Figure Pout that the visual indicator still plays if they're mute but not blocked, so they can have conversations even when one person wants to keep their device quiet. But there is plausible deniability if someone is blocking a bub when they don't respond because it's easy not to know about the sound if you're not looking at the device.)
As mentioned in the next section, if a user tries to send a sound or text message to a bub who is offline, a window appears telling them that the bub is offline and asking if they want to send a message through email. See explanation in the TIMs section, near Figure P10. In the case of trying to send a sound message, the text area would start out blank, since we can't send sound messages through email.
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| Figure P6. SIM log screen |
Hubbub provides a log of the last 5 SIMs to arrive. This might be useful if theuser hears a sound but isn't able to identify the sound and doesn't look at the screen fast enough to see the flashing message. Or they may have muted Hubbub and had their attention elsewhere, but they can still find out the most recent messages to arrive. To see the log, users tap the "Last msgs" button from the main screen. This brings up the log screen, shown in Figure P6. [It would be nice if you could tap one of those items in the list to go to that person's Bub page so you could easily respond without having to navigate your way to them. Let's try to get this in if we can.]
We expect that people will want to create new SIMs once they get the hang of using the ones we provide. We are still working out our plans for supporting this activity.
 
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