As with the other parts of the Alvey Programme, Informatics was involved with many of the coordination activities undertaken by the MMI Directorate. Some of the activities are listed below.
There were about 2000 subscribers. Issues came out on a quarterly basis. The contributions to the mailshot came from the four Alvey MMI areas (Human Interface, Image Processing, Speech Processing, and Displays). Each of these areas had an editor who stimulated, collected and vetted contributions.
After initial experiments with shell scripts, a real database was used to handle the volume and complexity of the data required. A system built round the Sun INGRES relational database package was designed and implemented. A simple front-end was written for end-users. The data collection form was designed and the data input partially automated. Following comments from a number of experts, the original form was extensively redesigned and distributed to about 700 addresses. The entries were then available to the community.
User interfaces tend to be a visual experience so it was decided to set up a video library of MMI techniques. This library consisted of about 40 tapes, mainly from SIGGRAPH as there were very few videos available from the community at large.
