Direct combination

This paper reports on Direct Combination, a new user interactiontechnique. Direct Combination may be viewed variously as: asystematic extension to Direct Manipulation; a concise navigationalframework to help users find the operations they need; and as aframework to make a greater range and variety of operationsavailable to the user, without overburdening user or interfacedesigner. While Direct Combination may be seen as an extension ofDirect Manipulation, it may also be applied to a wide range of userinteraction styles, including even command line interfaces.Examples from various hypothetical systems and from an implementedsystem are presented. This paper argues that Direct Combination isapplicable not just to problem seeking or design oriented domains(where the technique originated) but is generally applicable. Avariety of new interaction styles for Direct Combination arepresented. The generalisation of Direct Combination to then-dimensional case is presented.