Optimum User Experience with the Juggler SIP Software Telephone C. B. Roellgen, Global IP Telecommunications Ltd. January 10, 2013 Abstract For over an entire century, telephones have been bulky apparatuses that wasted valuable space on the desktops of employees in offices worldwide. Since the emergence of mobile phone devices and since headsets and VoIP are being used, office telecommunications have become more feature rich, but also more diversified and more complicated to use. Technological advance although enables to make a gigantic leap forward in unifying communication technologies resulting in greatly improved user experience and free space on employee's desktops as well as on virtual desktops (on computer screens). Tap-proof telephony, desktop sharing and interaction of voice communication with office software are all available at a simple sketchy gesture while absolutely no desktop space is occupied permanently. Key words: VoIP, Voice-over-Internet-Protocol, SIP, Session Initiation Protocol, softclient, software, telephone, gesture, user interface, desktop, space, user experience, ergonomics, touch panel, encryption, Juggler, Ninja, knocking, menu. Fig. 1: The Gesture-Sensitive User Interface of the Juggler SIP Softclient from Global IP Telecommunications
1. Introduction Desktops in offices all over the world have the tendency to be overloaded with paper and working equipment. Fig. 2: "Extension" of the desktop of a white-collar worker, Germany, 2012 Telephones, PCs and computer screens have become omnipresent since these devices have become fit for everyday use. Relief came when the old bulky computer monitors that used to be equipped with heavy cathode ray tubes, were replaced by slim LCD monitors. The real-life example to the left shows that this is sometimes not enough. While the mode of operation of a monitor is of minor importance to people, telephones are a confirmed habit to a majority of people. Entire generations of white-collar workers are so accustomed to telephone handsets and their manageability that they would rightly only accept a truly superior concept. Usability is of primary importance for an office telephone. This is particularly true for incoming calls. Users first look at the display of their telephone on an inbound call. Due to the typically short distance to the telephone it is easy to pick up the handset in almost no time. The ergonomics of this setup has been perfected for more than a century. This advantage puts undeniable advantages of mobile phones or headsets into perspective. Mobility and the possibility to walk freely around as well as having both hands free are less valuable than the haptics of classic hardware telephones. A ground-breaking innovation assimilates the ergonomics of classic hardware telephones and combines these advantages with the richness of features and advantages of recent technological advances in Unified Communications like hands-free calling, desktop sharing and interaction of voice communication with office software. Fig. 3: Hands-free talking with a wireless headset (more than 30m reach)
2. The telephone that consumes 0% desktop space but that is 100% available An ultimate communications device uses no space - neither on the desktop nor anywhere else - and it connects the user with anybody on this planet within almost no time. The Juggler SIP softclient comes very close to this ideal conception. The Juggler User Interface opens when "knocking" two times at the bottom of the desktop Fig. 4: The gesture-sensitive user interface of the Juggler SIP softclient is invisible unless the user needs it. A simply gesture is sufficient to bring the telephone to the front and to make and receive calls. When knocking with the mouse pointer at the bottom boundary of the desktop twice, the currently existing calls open on the left side, the main control bar opens on the top side and the contact list opens on the left side of the primary screen. When knocking at the bottom boundary of the desktop once again two times, the user interface of the telephone disappears and thus consumes no space on the desktop. The concept is named "knocking menu".
The preceding product, the Ninja SIP softclient, comes with a classic user interface that consumes valuable space on the virtual desktop of computer users. The figure on the left side shows impressively how the constraints of a classic user interface of software telephones lead to multi-window extensions if a video call is underway or if a call needs to be encrypted. In contrast to this, the user interface of the Juggler SIP softclient is usually invisible, which allows to use the desktop for other tasks. Fig. 5: Ninja SIP softclient left panel: Calls top of desktop: Main menu right panel: Contacts Knocking with mouse pointer twice against the bottom of the desktop opens entire UI of the Juggler SIP softclient Fig. 6: A simple gesture renders the gesture-sensitive user interface of the Juggler SIP softclient visible In order to get an impression of the ground-breaking user interface of the Juggler SIP softclient, please follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeb5s0ycgbq Since the individual panels on left, top and right side contain different groups of telephone functions, it is now possible to group a small number of comprehensive functions in each panel. For instance does the calls panel on the left side only contain functions that are closely related to a call like "make call" or "hangup" or "put on hold", "conferencing" by ending hold states of the calls that the user wants to join in his conference. Functions like opening the settings menu, the contact list or anything else that is unspecific for managing a telephone conversation, are grouped on the top bar and the menu on the right side.
3. Detailed overview of the user interface of the Juggler SIP Softclient 3.1 The left panel: Calls A first call that is placed on hold. By clicking at the symbol, a three-way conference can be initiated at any time A second call that is active at this very moment Fig. 7: Computer generated image of the view on the left panel of the Juggler user interface with the list of calls All currently existing calls are grouped on the left side of the desktop one below the other. A call can either be active or it can be in the "on hold" state. If more than one call is active, a telephone conference is underway. The concept is new and consequently users are not yet accustomed to it. It is although very comprehensive and extremely powerful due to the fact that the fundamental functionality of a telephone - to make and receive calls - is made available in the form of visible objects. These objects only contain controls that make functionalities available that are directly related with the call itself. These functionalities currently include: - start and stop encryption - start video - start a desktop sharing session (not shown in the CGI image above because the function was disabled when the screenshot was taken) - hangup Calls can easily be transferred by dragging one call and dropping it on another call. Calls can be made by dragging a contact in the "Contacts" list to the edit box on the top left position in the above CGI image. It is also possible to enter a phone number there manually.
3.2 The top border: Main menu The main menu is divided into two parts with related functionalities grouped: Call-related functions: Phone operations / settings: Fig. 8: Selection of preferred SIP service/phone menu Mic. and speaker VU meter Mic mute Hands-free talking Record (of the conversation) Open video Auto(matic) conference Do not disturb Auto answer Automatic conference Chat NGN account re-register Restart phone Use SSC gateway (in case the firewall blocks VoIP) Start CTI hardware mode (remote-control hardware a telephone) Current presence status (available / busy) Short keys Phonebook Call history Settings Help Functionalities grouped in the main menu displayed on top of the desktop when the UI is placed on top 3.3 The right panel: Contacts, Call history, Message Waiting Indicator, Banned numbers, Recordings, Video The current implementation of the tab sheet collection groups a list of contacts, the call history, messages and banned numbers with recordings and a video window that is used during video conversations. Both h.263 and h.264 are supported by the advanced video engine. The list of contacts contains a number of unprecedented features: Entries can be downloaded from a special server Presence state is displayed in realtime Entries are drag- as well as drop targets in order to easy making and blind-transferring calls Fig. 8: Right panel showing the busy state of one of the contacts The following screenshots show the reaction of the Juggler SIP softclient on a drag operation commencing at the contact "Bernd" when the mouse pointer hovers over different contact list entries - in this case the valid drop target "Jack" has been identified by the Juggler SIP softclient. The red color of the box although indicates that the user "Jack" is unavailable at the moment. Otherwise the color would be green and initiation of a call would be possible.
Fig. 9: Initiation of a call through drag-and-drop within the contact list Fig. 10: Initiation of a call through drag-and-drop onto the edit box for telephone numbers on the right side of the Juggler User Interface Video is integrated into the right panel for optimum user convenience. During video conferences the screen is split in order to accommodate a view area for each remote party. Both h.263 and h.264 video codecs are fully supported. h.264 (technically identical with MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 Part 10) is one of the codecs for Bluray discs, YouTube, Adobe Flash Player, Microsoft Silverlight and HDTV broadcasts (TVB-T, DVB-T2, DVB-C, DVB-S and DVB-S2). Fig. 11: Video telephony with a webcam
h.263, which was ratified in 1996 is, just like h.264, a block-oriented motion-compensation-based codec standard and requires approximately two times the data rate of h.264. h.263 is similar to the well-known MPEG-2 standard for TV broadcasts in Standard Definition (DVB-C, DVB-S). The Juggler User Interface allows for adjusting the picture quality and size intuitively. The following sizes are currently supported: SubQCIF (128x96 pixels) QCIF (176x144 pixels) CIF (352x288 pixels) 4CIF (704x576 pixels) Fig. 12: Video window integrated in the right panel of the Juggler User Interface
4. Conclusion In this paper, the groundbreaking realization of a user interface for a software telephone, which has the potential to herald a paradigm shift, has been presented. For the first time it is possible to provide office workers with a feature-rich telephone that is readily available through a simple gesture, but that does not require any valuable space on the "virtual" computer desktop, as well as on the "real" desktop. At the same time, usability is enormously increased by grouping different telephone functionalities together with associated options so that they are as comprehensive as ever possible. All this is made possible by specifically leaving the constraints of classic telephone user interfaces, which actually had to look similar to classic telephones in order to be accepted by a large number of users. Now that SIP softclients are well-known, it is time to unleash their power.
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