Planz to put our digital information in its place

  • William Jones ,
  • Dawei Hou ,
  • Bhuricha Deen Sethanandha ,
  • Sheng Bi ,
  • Jim Gemmell

Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems |

Published by Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.

alt.chi session

Planz provides a single, integrative document-like overlay to a folder hierarchy through the dynamic, on-demand assembly of XML fragments. This overlay provides a context in which to create or reference not only files but also email messages, web pages and informal notes. This paper describes an evaluation of Planz over a period of several days during which participants compared their experiences on two projects – one involving “status quo” methods, a second project involving Planz. Also discussed is an architecture that extends on the front-end to provide additional overlays and on the back-end in support of additional information stores. Work on Planz is guided by a vision of “structural integrity”: Many tools, many modes of interaction applied to a common structure for the organization of and access to personal information.