Freefeed-Instead of Forms Youssef Ali, Lars Hallnäs, Mats Jontell*, Nader Nazari & Olof Torgersson Department of Computing Science Chalmers University of Technology and Göteborg University SE-412 96 Göteborg, Sweden +46 31 772 54 06 {youssef, lars, nazari, oloft}@cs.chalmers.se *Clinic of Oral Medicine, Faculty of Odontology, Göteborg University ABSTRACT We describe an interaction technique for entering data that provides an alternative to the form-based method most often used in computer programs today. The technique was originally developed for entering detailed clinical patient data at medical examinations and has been successfully used by clinicians for entering more than 1200 patient records during a period of several years. Keywords Data Entry, interaction technique, forms 1. INTRODUCTION The most common way to design an application where data needs to be entered is to use forms. The forms are typically built from objects such as text-fields, pull- down lists, and checkboxes (Frank 1988). This paper describes Freefeed; a technique for entering data where the forms are replaced by a specialized text-editor coupled with hypertext links for navigation and easily scrollable text lists containing possible values. Freefeed was originally developed as a solution for entering detailed patient, medical history, and status information during clinical examinations. The design goal behind Freefeed was to create an unobtrusive, easy-to-use, space efficient, and scalable method for entering data, where the forms used could be created by users without requiring any programming knowledge. We describe the interaction technique and experiences from using it regularly for about two years. 2. DESIGN CONSTRAINTS Freefeed was conceived as a solution for entering data based on an analysis of the constraints given. This analysis describes a conceptual model of the act of entering data and external requirements describing the environment in which data is to be entered. 2.1 Entering Data The conceptual database model for which Freefeed was developed is that of a collection of definitions, where each definition describes one record. Each such definition can be pictured as a collection of equations: Occup = Dentist. Born = Sweden. In this setting, entering data is the act of creating a definition. Our goal was to support the act of defining medical examinations, while keeping a non-technical interface to the user. 2.2 Other Requirements Some of the more important external requirements were: • Data is entered by the clinician him/herself while a patient is being examined. • Each record in the database can have a large number of different attributes and each attribute a very large number of possible values. • Values for attributes are most often taken from formalized lists of valid values.