Knowledge workers manage multiple tasks, collaborate effectively among several colleagues, and manipulate information most relevant to their current task by leveraging the spatial organization of their work area. The diversity of these work practices and the complexity of implementing flexible computing tools make it difficult to meet these workers' needs. However, a common thread among all of these practices that can be leveraged to provide more appropriate computational support for knowledge work is their relationship to the construct of an activity: a collection of tools (applications, documents, and other resources) within a social and organizational context and in service of an objective or goal. Giornata seeks to demonstrate how the traditional desktop metaphor can be re-envisioned to better match knowledge workers' practices by emphasizing activity as a primary organizing principle in GUI-based interaction.
