A Framework for the Combination and Characterization of Output Modalities

This article proposes a framework that will help analyze current and future output multimodal user interfaces. We first define an output multimodal system. We then present our framework that identifies several different combinations of modalities and their characteristics. This framework assists in the selection of the most appropriate modalities for achieving efficient multimodal presentations. The discussion is illustrated with MulTab (Multimodal Table), an output multimodal system for managing large tables of numerical data.