The Mead multi-user interface prototyping system

This page provides information about MEAD - a prototyping environment which supports rapid development of multi-user interfaces for cooperative, shared information systems. The system was developed by members of the CSCW Centre at Lancaster University, UK, as part of a three year project entitled "The social analysis of control systems for HCI design". From here you can:

For more information about the MEAD system or anything on this WWW page, send email to bentley@gmd.de

Overview of MEAD

MEAD is a prototyping environment which supports rapid development of multi-user interfaces for cooperative shared information systems. The role of the user interface for such systems is to present and support manipulation of information on multiple end-users' screens, propagating each end-user's interactions to ensure screens present consistent information representations. MEAD provides a set of tools to support development of user interface representations, integrated with a software architecture which manages execution of interface prototypes in a distributed environment.

A key feature of the system is the ability to construct and refine a multi-user interface prototype while it is being executed, allowing participation of end-users and non-programmers in the design process. This is made possible through the abstraction of User Displays which encapsulate both the interface semantics and current state, in terms of the appearance and interaction mechanisms of the representations, allowing experimentation with a wide variety of interface designs. Modification of the semantics of a User Display results in immediate re-computation of its state, which is then propagated to all affected display screens by a dedicated User Display agent. Studies have shown that this mechanism supports rapid prototyping and evaluation of multi-user interface designs, as well as fine-grain interface tailoring with immediately visible results.

Getting MEAD
MEAD version 2.0 is available for anonymous ftp from Lancaster University. The software is copyright Lancaster University, and is supplied without warranty and for non-commercial use only.

The software is written in Objectworks\Smalltalk r4.1 for Sun workstations only (the communications modules are platform dependent). You will need a copy of ParcPlace Objectworks\Smalltalk (Visualworks should also be OK) and around 6 megabytes of disk space. It is recommended you run the system on a workstation with a colour monitor and a lot of memory. To get a copy of the system click here.

You may also need a copy of the MEAD user manual. This is a postscript document giving an introduction to the system, installation and start up details and an example of its use. Click here to get the manual.

The MEAD bibliography

References to further information on the MEAD system
The principal technical reference for MEAD is my PhD thesis, entitled Supporting multi-user interface development for cooperative systems. This is available as a technical report from Lancaster University, and a postscript version can be obtained by anonymous ftp from: 
ftp.comp.lancs.ac.uk, pub/reports/ThesisRB.ps.Z
It's big, so only click here if you want a copy.

Other information is available in the form of published papers. There follows a bibliography plus links to electronic copies of the referenced papers, where available.

MEAD papers

Twidale, M., Randall, D. and Bentley, R., Situated evaluation for cooperative systems, in Proceedings of CSCW'94, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 24-27 October 1994, pp 441-452.

Bentley, R., Rodden, T., Sawyer, P. and Sommerville, I., Architectural support for cooperative multi-user interfaces, in IEEE COMPUTER special issue on CSCW, 27(5), May 1994, pp 37-46. (a draft of this paper can be found here)

Bentley, R., Rodden, T., Sawyer, P. and Sommerville, I., An architecture for tailoring cooperative multi-user displays, in Proceedings of CSCW'92, Toronto, ACM Press, 1-4 November 1992, pp 187-194.

Bentley, R., Rodden, T., Sawyer, P. and Sommerville, I., A prototyping environment for dynamic data visualisation, in Proceedings of 5th IFIP Working Conference on Engineering for Human-Computer Interaction, C. Unger and J. A. Larson (Eds), Ellivuori (Finland), 10-14 August 1992, pp 335-347.

Ethnographically-informed system development
The MEAD system was developed as part of a larger project at Lancaster University entitled "The social analysis of control systems for HCI design". This project, involving the departments of Sociology and Computing, concerned the use of ethnographic techniques to inform the development of multi-user interfaces with MEAD. A selection of references to work from this project is given below.

Sommerville, I., Bentley, R., Rodden, T and Sawyer, P., Cooperative systems design, in The Computer Journal, 37(5), 1994, pp 357-366.

Hughes, J., Sommerville, I., Randall, D. and Bentley, R., Designing with ethnography: making work visible, in Interacting with Computers, 5(2), 1993, pp 239-253.

Bentley, R., Hughes, J., Randall, D., Rodden, T., Sawyer, P., Shapiro, D. and Sommerville, I., Ethnographically-informed systems development for air traffic control, in Proceedings of CSCW'92, Toronto, ACM Press, 1-4 November 1992, pp 123-129.

Hughes, J., Randall, D. and Shapiro, D., Faltering from ethnography to design, in Proceedings of CSCW'92, Toronto, ACM Press, 1-4 November 1992, pp 115-122.

Shapiro, D., Hughes, J., Randall, D. and Harper, R., Visual re-representation of database information: the flight strip in air traffic control, in Proceedings of the 10th Informatics and Psychology, Scharding, Austria, 1991.

Cooperative Systems Engineering Group | Computing Department | Lancaster University
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