Reference Information
Chronicle: Capture, Exploration, and Playback of Document Workflow Histories
- Tovi Grossman, Justin Matejka, and George Fitzmaurice
- UIST 2010, New York, New York
Chronicle: Capture, Exploration, and Playback of Document Workflow Histories
- Tovi Grossman, Justin Matejka, and George Fitzmaurice
- UIST 2010, New York, New York
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| The main view of the Chronicle interface. |
Summary
The Chronicle is a means to track the progress of a document with many features to review and analyze the progress. In this case, it utilized photo editing software to track the progress of the photo’s changes. Throughout the process of editing a photo with software, many changes can occur such as layer editing and other special effects, and Chronicle keeps track of these changes in a few different ways.
The Chronicle is a means to track the progress of a document with many features to review and analyze the progress. In this case, it utilized photo editing software to track the progress of the photo’s changes. Throughout the process of editing a photo with software, many changes can occur such as layer editing and other special effects, and Chronicle keeps track of these changes in a few different ways.
One is with video playback of the changes being made. The program records the entire editing process so users can see exactly how a certain effect was done by the original creator. Another view is the timeline view, in which all of the changes and what kind of effect the change utilized is laid out in a graphical timeline. And the other view is a calendar view where a screenshot of each photo design is displayed on the day it was created so the user can easily view the progress of the photo.
The developers conducted a study involving 8 participants with at least 3 years of image editing software experience. The participants’ job was to carry out a series of tasks that utilized Chronicle’s capabilities without having much experience with the software. They were explained the main features and functionality of the program, but that was all. In the end, the participants were able to complete 92% of these tasks. Then they were all asked to evaluate their experience with a series of questions. Overall, they enjoyed the program and rated it highly and it made sense to them.
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| Chronicle's timeline view. |
One of the main downfalls of the program is that it is application dependent on Paint.NET, the program they adapted to use their system. In the future, they would like to change it so it can be used with any type of photo editing software. They would also like to find a more convenient way to store the history video recordings, possibly on a network server instead of the local machine. They hope do more tests to truly figure out if Chronicle is an effective learning tool, seeing as that was one of their main objectives in creating the software in the first place.
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| Chronicle's calendar view. |
Discussion
I have gotten into some photo editing over the past year or so, and I really like this idea of saving all of the history of the creation process. And like they said, this could be a very useful way for people to learn from other’s work exactly how to do complex editing tasks. Written tutorials are nice, but unless they are accompanied by a video, they can be difficult to follow and figure out. But even the history tracking they have in Chronicle is nice enough to warrant a program for that purpose. I don’t necessarily need to see exactly how all of my creations were made, but it would be useful to see how I did an effect without having to rediscover the entire process all over again. Chronicle is a great idea, and I really hope they continue work on it and make it more application independent.
I have gotten into some photo editing over the past year or so, and I really like this idea of saving all of the history of the creation process. And like they said, this could be a very useful way for people to learn from other’s work exactly how to do complex editing tasks. Written tutorials are nice, but unless they are accompanied by a video, they can be difficult to follow and figure out. But even the history tracking they have in Chronicle is nice enough to warrant a program for that purpose. I don’t necessarily need to see exactly how all of my creations were made, but it would be useful to see how I did an effect without having to rediscover the entire process all over again. Chronicle is a great idea, and I really hope they continue work on it and make it more application independent.
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