BumpTop

BumpTop was a 2006 3D multitouch desktop shell which attempted to capture the nuances of physical workspaces in a file management interface. Users can:

• kinetically rearrange their files on a desktop or a wall (anticipating some of the iPhone interactions)
• stack and riffle through files, or fan them out
• make some files larger to indicate their relative import
• crease and manipulate the iconic representations of files like you might dog-ear a book page

People brought up this interface several times in my Twitter thread on Peripheral vision, but I don’t really think the ideas here meaningfully help with the issues I pointed at.

This was the master’s thesis of Anand Agarawala.