ABSTRACT
Scrolling is the standard way to navigate through many types of digital documents. However, moving more than a few pages can be slow because all scrolling techniques constrain visual search to only a small document region. To improve document navigation, we developed Space-Filling Thumbnails (SFT), an overview display that eliminates most scrolling. SFT provides two views: a standard page view for reading, and a thumbnail view that shows all pages. We tested SFT in three experiments that involved finding pages in documents. The first study (n=13) compared seven current scrolling techniques, and showed that SFT is significantly faster than the other methods. The second and third studies (n=32 and n=14) were detailed comparisons of SFT with thumbnail-enhanced scrollbars (TES), which performed well in the first experiment. SFT was faster than TES across all document types and lengths, particularly when tasks involved revisitation. In addition, SFT was strongly preferred by participants.
- Bederson, B. (2001). PhotoMesa: A Zoomable Image Browser Using Quantum Treemaps and Bubblemaps. Proc. UIST01, 71--80. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bederson, B. and Hollan, J. (1994). Pad++: A Zooming Graphical Interface for Exploring Alternate Interface Physics. Proc. UIST'94, 17--26. Google ScholarDigital Library
- de Bruijn, O. and Spence, R. (2000). Rapid Serial Visual Presentation: A Space-Time Trade-Off in Information Presentation. Proc. AVI2000, 189--192. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Byrd, D. (1999). A Scrollbar-based Visualization for Document Navigation. Proc. Digital Libr. '99, 122--129. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Byrne, M., John, B., Wehrle, N. and Crow, D. (1999). The Tangled Web We Wove: A Taskonomy of WWW Use. Proc. CHI'99, 544--551. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Card, S. Mackinlay, JD and Shneiderman, B. (1999). Readings in Info. Visualization. Morgan-Kaufmann.Google Scholar
- Cockburn, A. and Greenberg, S. (2000). Issues of Page Representation and Organisation in Web Browser's Revisitation Tools. Aus. J. of Info. Sys, 7 (2), 120--127.Google Scholar
- Cockburn, A. and Savage, J. (2003). Comparing Speed- Dependent Automatic Zooming with Traditional Scroll, Pan and Zoom Methods. Proc. British HCI, 87--102.Google Scholar
- Cockburn, A., Savage, J. and Wallace, A. (2005). Tuning and Testing Scrolling Interfaces that Automatically Zoom. Proc. CHI'05, 71--80. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Czerwinski, M., van Dantzich, M., Robertson, G. and Hoffman, H. (1999). The Contribution of Thumbnail Image, Mouse-Over Text and Spatial Location Memory to Web Page Retrieval in 3D. Proc.Interact'99, 163--170.Google Scholar
- Egan, D. and Gomez, M. (1985). Assaying, Isolating, and Accommodating Individual Differences in Learning a Complex Skill. in Dillon, R. ed. Individual Differences in Cognition, 173--217.Google Scholar
- Fitts, P. (1954). The Information Capacity of the Human Motor System in Controlling the Amplitude of Movement. J. Experimental Psychology, 47, 381--391.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Gagnon, D. (1985). Videogames and Spatial Skills: An Exploratory Study. Educational Communication and Technology, 33 (4), 263--275.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Hart, S. and Staveland, L. (1988). Development of NASA-TLX (Task Load Index): Results of Empirical and Theoretical Research. in Hancock, P.M., ed. Human Mental Workload, 139--183.Google Scholar
- Hill, W. and Hollan, J. (1992). Edit Wear and Read Wear. Proc. CHI'92, 3--9. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hinckley, K., Cutrell, E., Bathiche, S. and Muss, T. (2002). Quantitative Analysis of Scrolling Techniques. Proc. CHI'2002, 65--72. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hornbaek, K. and Frokjaer, E. (2003). Reading Patterns and Usability in Visualizations of Electronic Documents. ACM Trans. CHI, 10 (2), 119--149. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Igarashi, T. and Hinckley, K. (2000). Speed-dependent Automatic Zooming for Browsing Large Documents. Proc. UIST'00, 139--148. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jones, W. and Dumais, S. (1986). The Spatial Metaphor for User Interfaces: Experimental Tests of Reference by Location versus Name. ACM Trans. OIS, 4 (1), 42--63. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Klein, C. and Bederson, B. (2005). Benefits of Animated Scrolling. Ext. Abstracts CHI'05, 1965--1968. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lam, H. and Baudisch, P. (2005). Summary Thumbnails: Readable Overviews for Small Screen Web Browsers. Proc. CHI'05, 681--690. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mills, C. and Weldon, L. (1986). Reading text from computer screens. ACM Comp. Surveys, 19, 329--358. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Moyes, J. (1994). When Users Do and Don't Rely on Icon Shape. Ext. Abstrs. CHI'94, 283--284. Google ScholarDigital Library
- O'Hara, K. and Sellen, A. (1997). A comparison of reading paper and on-line documents. Proc. CHI'97, 335--342. Google ScholarDigital Library
- O'Hara, K., Sellen, A. and Bentley, R. (1999). Supporting Memory for Spatial Location While Reading from Small Displays. Ext. Abs. CHI'99, 220--221. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Robertson, G., Czerwinski, M., Larson, K., Robbins, D., Thiel, D. and van Dantzich, M. (1998). Data Mountain: Using Spatial Memory for Document Management. Proc. UIST'98. 153--162. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Schwarz, E., Beldie, I. and Pastoor, S. (1983). A Comparison of Paging and Scrolling for Changing Screen Contents by Inexperienced Users. Human Factors, 25 (3), 279--282.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Spence, B., Witkowski, M., Fawcett, C., Craft, B. and de Bruijn, O. (2004). Image Presentation in Space and Time: Errors, Preferences and Eye-Gaze Activity. Proc. AVI'04, 141--149. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Suh, B., Woodruff, A., Rosenholtz, R. and Glass, A. (2002). Popout Prism: Adding Perceptual Principles to Overview+Detail Document Interfaces. Proc. CHI'02, 251--258. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sun, L. and Guimbretiere, F. (2005). Flipper: a new method of digital document navigation. Ext. Abs CHI'05, 2001--2004. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sutherland, I. (1963). Sketchpad: A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System. AFIPS Spring Joint Computer Conference, 329--346.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Teitelbaum, R. and Granda, R. (1983). The Effects of Positional Constancy on Searching Menus for Information. Proc. CHI'83, 150--153. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Vicente, K., Hayes, B. and Williges, R. (1987). Assaying and Isolating Individual Differences in Searching a Hierarchical File System. Human Factors, 29 (3), 349--359. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Woodruff, A., Faulring, A., Rosenholtz, R., Morrison, J. and Pirolli, P. (2001). Using Thumbnails to Search the Web. Proc. CHI'01, 198--205. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Zhai, S., Smith, B. and Selker, T. (1997). Improving Browsing Performance: A Study of Four Input Devices for Scrolling and Pointing Tasks. Proc. INTERACT'97, 286--292. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- Faster document navigation with space-filling thumbnails
Recommendations
A Field Experiment of Spatially-Stable Overviews for Document Navigation
CHI '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsFinding (and re-finding) locations in text documents is a common activity for most computer users -- but tools for document navigation are still limited in many ways. Previous research has shown that a spatially-stable overview of the entire document ...
Semantic thumbnails: a novel method for summarizing document collections
SIGDOC '04: Proceedings of the 22nd annual international conference on Design of communication: The engineering of quality documentationThe concept of thumbnails is common in image representation. A thumbnail is a highly compressed version of an image that provides a small, yet complete visual representation to the human eye. We propose the adaptation of the concept of thumbnails to the ...
Benefits of animated scrolling
CHI EA '05: CHI '05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing SystemsWe examined the benefits of animated scrolling using four speeds and three different document types in terms of task speed, accuracy and user preference. We considered reading tasks involving unformatted and formatted text documents, as well as counting ...
Comments