Andy Cockburn
Benjamin B. Bederson
Skip Abstract Section
Abstract
There are many interface schemes that allow users to work at, and move between, focused and contextual views of a dataset. We review and categorize these schemes according to the interface mechanisms used to separate and blend views. The four approaches are overview+detail, which uses a spatial separation between focused and contextual views; zooming, which uses a temporal separation; focus+context, which minimizes the seam between views by displaying the focus within the context; and cue-based techniques which selectively highlight or suppress items within the information space. Critical features of these categories, and empirical evidence of their success, are discussed. The aim is to provide a succinct summary of the state-of-the-art, to illuminate both successful and unsuccessful interface strategies, and to identify potentially fruitful areas for further work.
- Aboelsaadat, W. and Balakrishnan, R. 2004. An empirical comparison of transparency on one and two layer displays. In Proceedings of the British HCI Conference, People and Computers XVIII, 53--67.Google Scholar
- Appert, C. and Fekete, J. 2006. OrthoZoom scroller: 1D mutli-scale navigation. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 21--30. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Baudisch, P., Good, N., Bellotti, V., and Schraedley, P. 2002. Keeping things in context: A comparative evaluation of focus plus context screens, overviews, and zooming. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 259--266. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Baudisch, P., Lee, B., and Hanna, L. 2004. Fishnet, a fisheye Web browser with search term popouts: A comparative evaluation with overview and linear view. In Proceedings of the Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI). ACM Press, 133--140. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Baudisch, P. and Rosenholtz, R. 2003. Halo: A technique for visualizing off-screen locations. In Proceedings of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 481--488. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Beard, D. and Walker, J. 1990. Navigational techniques to improve the display of large two-dimensional spaces. Behav. Inf. Technol. 9, 6, 451--466.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Bederson, B. 2000. Fisheye menus. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST). ACM Press, 217--225. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bederson, B. 2001. PhotoMesa: A zoomable image browser using quantum treemaps and bubblemaps. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), ACM Press, 71--80. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bederson, B. and Boltman, A. 1999. Does animation help users build mental maps of spatial information? In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization (InfoVis). IEEE Computer Society, 28--35. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bederson, B., Grosjean, J., and Meyer, J. 2004a. Toolkit design for interactive structured graphics. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 30, 8, 535--546. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bederson, B., Hollan, J., Perlin, K., Meyer, J., Bacon, D., and Furnas, G. 1996. Pad++: A zoomable graphical sketchpad for exploring alternate interface physics. J. Visual Lang. Comput. 7, 1, 3--31.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Bederson, B. B., Clamage, A., Czerwinski, M. P., and Robertson, G. G. 2004b. DateLens: A fisheye calendar interface for PDAs. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interac. 11, 1, 90--119. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bederson, B. B., Meyer, J., and Good, L. 2000. Jazz: An extensible zoomable user interface graphics toolkit in Java. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST). ACM Press, 171--180. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bier, E. A., Stone, M. C., Pier, K., Buxton, W., and Derose, T. D. 1993. Toolglass and magic lenses: The see-through interface. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Graphics an Interactive Techniques. ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM Press, 73--80. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Bourgeois, F. and Guiard, Y. 2002. Multiscale pointing: Facilitating pan-zoom coordination. In Extended Abstracts of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems (CHI), 758--759. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Büring, T., Gerken, J., and Reiterer, H. 2006. User interaction with scatterplots on small screens—A comparative evaluation of geometric-semantic zoom and fisheye distortion. IEEE Trans. Visual. Comput. Graph. 12, 5, 829--836. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Byrd, D. 1999. A scrollbar-based visualization for document navigation. In Proceedings of the Conference on Digital Libraries, 122--129. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Card, S., Mackinlay, J., and Shneiderman, B. 1999. Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think. Morgan-Kaufmann. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Card, S. K., Robertson, G. G., and Mackinlay, J. D. 1991. The information visualizer, an information workspace. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 181--186. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Carpendale, M. and Cowperthwaite, D. 1997. Making distortions comprehensible. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages (VL), IEEE, 36--45. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Carpendale, M. and Montagnese, C. 2001. A framework for unifying presentation space. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST). ACM Press, 61--70. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Chen, C. 2004. Information Visualization: Beyond the Horizon. Springer, London. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Chimera, R. 1992. ValueBars: An information visualization and navigation tool. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 293--294. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Chui, M. and Dillon, A. 1997. Who's zooming whom? Attunement to animation in the interface. J. Amer. Soc. Inf. Sci. 48, 11, 1067--1072. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Cockburn, A., Gutwin, C., and Alexander, J. 2006. Faster document navigation with space-filling thumbnails. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 1--10. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Cockburn, A. and Savage, J. 2003. Comparing speed-dependent automatic zooming with traditional scroll, pan and zoom methods. In Proceedings of the British Computer Society Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, People and Computers XVII, 87--102.Google Scholar
- Cockburn, A., Savage, J., and Wallace, A. 2005. Tuning and testing scrolling interfaces that automatically zoom. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 71--80. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Czerwinski, M. and Larson, K. 1997. The new Web browsers: They're cool but are they useful? In Proceedings of the British HCI Conference, People and Computers XII. Springer.Google Scholar
- Czerwinski, M., Tan, D., and Robertson, G. 2002. Women take a wider view. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 195--202. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Donskoy, M. and Kaptelinin, V. 1997. Window navigation with and without animation: A comparison of scroll bars, zoom, and fisheye view. In the Companion Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 279--280. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Druin, A., Stewart, J., Proft, D., Bederson, B., and Hollan, J. 1997. KidPad: A design collaboration between children, technologists, and educators. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 463--470. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Dumais, S., Cutrell, E., and Chen, H. 2001. Optimizing search by showing results in context. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 277--284. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Fitts, P. 1954. The information capacity of the human motor system in controlling the amplitude of movement. J. Exper. Psychol. 47, 381--391.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Furnas, G. 1986. Generalized fisheye views. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 16--23. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Furnas, G. 1997. Effective view navigation. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 367--374. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Furnas, G. 2006. A fisheye follow-up: Further reflections on focus+context. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 999--1008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Furnas, G. and Zhang, X. 1998. MuSE: A multiscale editor. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), 107--116. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Furnas, G. W. and Bederson, B. B. 1995. Space-Scale diagrams: Understanding multiscale interfaces. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 234--241. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ghosh, P. and Shneiderman, B. 1999. Zoom-Only vs. overview-detail pair: A study in browsing techniques as applied to patient histories. Tech. Rep., 99--12, HCIL, University of Maryland, College Park.Google Scholar
- Gonzalez, C. 1996. Does animation in user interfaces improve decision making? In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 27--34. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Grudin, J. 2001. Partitioning digital worlds: Focal and peripheral awareness in multiple monitor use. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on human factors in computing systems (CHI), 458--465. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Guiard, Y. 1987. Asymmetric division of labor in human skilled bimanual action: The kinematic chain as a model. J. Motor Beha. 19, 4, 486--517.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Guiard, Y., Beaudouin-Lafon, M., Bastin, J., Pasveer, D., and Zhai, S. 2004. View size and pointing difficulty in multi-scale navigation. In Proceedings of the ACM Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI). ACM Press, 117--124. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Guiard, Y., Bourgeois, F., Mottet, D., and Beaudouin-Lafon, M. 2001. Beyond the 10-bit barrier: Fitts' law in multi-scale electronic worlds. In Proceedings of the IHM-HCI Conference, People and Computers XV, 573--587.Google Scholar
- Guiard, Y., Du, Y., and Chapuis, O. 2007. Quantifying degree of goal directedness in document navigation: Application to the evaluation of the perspective-drag technique. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 327--336. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Guimbretiere, F., Stone, M., and Winograd, T. 2001. Fluid interaction with high-resolution wall-size displays. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST). ACM Press, 21--30. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Gutwin, C. 2002. Improving focus targeting in interactive fisheye views. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 267--274. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Gutwin, C. and Fedak, C. 2004. Interacting with big interfaces on small screens: A comparison of fisheye, zoom, and panning techniques. In Proceedings of the Graphics Interface Conference. Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society, 213--220. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Gutwin, C., Roseman, M., and Greenberg, S. 1996. A usability study of awareness widgets in a shared workspace groupware system. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 258--267. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Gutwin, C. and Skopik, A. 2003. Fisheye views are good for large steering tasks. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 201--208. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Herman, I., Melancon, G., and Marshall, M. 2000. Graph visualization and navigation in information visualization: A survey. IEEE Trans. Visual. Comput. Graph. 6, 1, 24--43. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hill, W., Hollan, J., Wroblewski, D., and Mccandless, T. 1992. Edit wear and read wear. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 3--9. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hornbaek, K., Bederson, B., and Plaisant, C. 2002. Navigation patterns and usability of zoomable user interfaces with and without an overview. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 9, 4, 362--389. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hornbaek, K. and Frokjaer, E. 2003. Reading patterns and usability in visualizations of electronic documents. ACM Trans. Comput. Hum. Interact. 10, 2, 119--149. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hornbaek, K. and Hertzum, M. 2007. Untangling the usability of fisheye menus. ACM Trans. Comput. Hum. Interact. 14, 2, 6. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Igarashi, T. and Hinckley, K. 2000. Speed-Dependent automatic zooming for browsing large documents. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), 139--148. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jakobsen, M. and Hornbaek, K. 2006. Evaluating a fisheye view of source code. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 377--386. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jul, S. and Furnas, G. 1998. Critical zones in desert fog: Aids to multiscale navigation. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), 97--106. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Keahey, T. 1998. The generalized detail-in-context problem. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization. IEEE Press, 44--51. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Kersten, M. and Murphy, G. 2005. Mylar: A degree-of-interest model for IDEs. In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Apect-Oriented Software Development. ACM Press, 159--168. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Klein, C. and Bederson, B. 2005. Benefits of animated scrolling. In Extended Abstracts of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 1965--1968. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Kosara, R., Miksch, S., and Hauser, H. 2001. Semantic depth of field. In Proceedings of the IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, Symposium on Information Visualization (InfoVis), IEEE Computer Society Press, 97--104. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Kosara, R., Miksch, S., and Hauser, H. 2002. Focus+Context taken literally. IEEE Comput. Graph. Appl. 22, 1, 22--29. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lam, H. and Baudisch, P. 2005. Summary thumbnails: Readable overviews for small screen Web browsers. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 681--690. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lamping, J., Rao, R., and Pirolli, P. 1995. A focus+context technique based on hyperbolic geometry for visualising large hierarchies. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 401--408. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Leung, Y. and Apperley, M. 1994. A review and taxonomy of distortion-oriented presentation techniques. ACM Trans. Comput. Hum.-Interact. 1, 2, 126--160. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mackay, W., Appert, C., Beaudouin-Lafon, M., Chapuis, O., Du, Y., and Fekete, J. 2007. Touchstone: Exploratory design of experiments. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 1425--1434. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mackinlay, J., Card, S., and Robertson, G. 1990. Rapid controlled movement through a virtual 3D workspace. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. ACM Press, 171--176. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mackinlay, J., Robertson, G., and Card, S. 1991. Perspective wall: Detail and Context Smoothly Integrated. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 173--179. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mcguffin, M. and Balakrishnan, R. 2002. Acquisition of expanding targets. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 57--64. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Mullet, K., Fry, C., and Schiano, D. 1997. On your marks, get set browse! In Extended Abstracts of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems (CHI), 113--114. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Munzner, T., Guimbretiere, F., Tasiran, S., Zhang, L., and Zhou, Y. 2003. TreeJuxtaposer: Scalable tree comparison using focus+context with guaranteed visibility. ACM Trans. Graph. 22, 3, 453--462. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Nekrasovski, D., Bodnar, A., Mcgrenere, J., Guimbretiere, F., and Munzner, T. 2006. An evaluation of pan & zoom and rubber sheet navigation with and without an overview. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 11--20. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Norman, D. 2004. Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. Basic Books, New York.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Patrick, E., Cosgrove, D., Slavkovic, A., Rode, J., Veratti, T., and Chiselko, G. 2000. Using a large projection screen as an alternative to head-mounted displays for virtual environments. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 478--485. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Perlin, K. and Fox, D. 1993. Pad: An alternative approach to the computer interface. In Proceedings of the 20th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. ACM Press, 57--64. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Pietriga, E. 2005. A toolkit for addressing HCI issues in visual language environments. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL-HCC), 145--152. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Pietriga, E., Appert, C., and Beaudouin-Lafon, M. 2007. Pointing and beyond: An operationalization and preliminary evaluation of multi-scale searching. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 1215--1224. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Pirolli, P., Card, S., and Van Der Wege, M. 2001. Visual information foraging in a focus+context visualization. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 506--513. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Pirolli, P., Card, S., and Van Der Wege, M. 2003. The effects of information scent on visual search in the hyperbolic tree browser. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 10, 1, 20--53. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Plaisant, C., Carr, D., and Shneiderman, B. 1995. Image-Browser taxonomy and guidelines for designers. IEEE Softw. 12, 2, 21--32. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Plaisant, C., Grosjean, J., and Bederson, B. 2002. SpaceTree: Supporting exploration in large node link tree, design evolution and empirical evaluation. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization (InfoVis), 57--64. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Plaisant, C., Milash, B., Rose, A., Widoff, S., and Shneiderman, B. 1996. LifeLines: Visualizing Personal Histories. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 221--227. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Plumlee, M. and Ware, C. 2002. Modeling performance for zooming vs. multi-window interfaces based on visual working memory. In Proceedings of the ACM Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interface (AVI), 59--68. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ramos, G. and Balakrishnan, R. 2005. Zliding: Fluid zooming and sliding for high precision parameter manipulation. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST). ACM Press, 143--152. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Rao, R. and Card, S. K. 1994. The table lens: Merging graphical and symbolic representations in an interactive focus+context visualization for tabular information. In Proceedings of the the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 318--322. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Roberts, J. 2007. State of the art: Coordinated and multiple views in exploratory visualization. In Coordinated and Multiple Views in Exploratory Visualization, ETH, Switzerland, IEEE Press, 61--71. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Robertson, G., Czerwinski, M., Baudisch, P., Meyers, B., Robbins, D., Smith, G., and Tan, D. 2005. The large-display user experience. IEEE Comput. Graph. Appl. 25, 4, 44--51. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Robertson, G. G. and Mackinlay, J. D. 1993. The document lens. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST). ACM Press, 101--108. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sarkar, M. and Brown, M. 1992. Graphical fisheye views of graphs. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 83--91. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sarkar, M., Snibbe, S., and Reiss, S. 1993. Stretching the rubber sheet: A metaphor for visualising large structure on small screen. In Proceedings of the 16th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST). ACM Press, 81--91. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Schaffer, D., Zuo, Z., Greenberg, S., Bartram, L., Dill, J., Dubs, S., and Roseman, M. 1996. Navigating hierarchically clustered networks through fisheye and full-zoom methods. ACM Trans. Comput. Hum-Interact. 3, 2, 162--188. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Shoemaker, G. and Gutwin, C. 2007. Supporting multi-point interaction in visual workspaces. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 999--1008. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Spence, R. 2007. Information Visualization. Pearson Education Limited, Harlow. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Spence, R. and Apperley, M. 1982. Database navigation: An office enironment for the professional. Behav. Inf. Technol. 1, 1, 43--54.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Suh, B., Woodruff, A., Rosenholtz, R., and Glass, A. 2002. Popout prism: Adding perceptual principles to overview+detail document interfaces. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 251--258. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Summers, K., Goldsmith, T., Kubica, S., and Caudell, T. 2003. An empirical evaluation of continuous semantic zooming in program visualization. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization (InfoVis), 155--162. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Tan, D., Robertson, G., and Czerwinski, M. 2001. Exploring 3D navigation: Combining speed-coupled flying with orbiting. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 418--425. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Tobler, W. 1973. A continuous transformation useful for districting. Annals New York Acad. Sci. 219, 215--220.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Tversky, B., Morrison, J., and Betrancourt, M. 2002. Animation: Can it facilitate? Int. J. Hum-Comput. Studies 57, 247--262. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Van Wijk, J. and Nuij, W. 2004. A model for smooth viewing and navigation of large 2D information spaces. IEEE Trans. Visual. Comput. Graph. 10, 4, 447--458. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ware, C. 2004. Information Visualization: Perception for Design. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, CA. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ware, C. and Fleet, D. 1997. Context sensitive flying interface. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, 127--130. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ware, C. and Lewis, M. 1995. The DragMag image magnifier. In Companion Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 407--408. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Woodson, W. and Conover, D. 1964. Human Engineering Guide for Equipment Designers. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.Google Scholar
- Zanella, A., Carpendale, S., and Rounding, M. 2002. On the effects of viewing cues in comprehending distortions. In Proceedings of the Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI'02), 119--128. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Zellweger, P., Mackinlay, J., Good, L., Stefik, M., and Baudisch, P. 2002. City lights: Contextual views in minimal space. In Extended Abstracts of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 838--839. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Zhai, S., Conversy, S., Beaudouin-Lafon, M., and Guiard, Y. 2003. Human on-line response to target expansion. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, 177--184. Google ScholarDigital Library
Index Terms
- A review of overview+detail, zooming, and focus+context interfaces
Recommendations
City lights: contextual views in minimal space
CHI EA '03: CHI '03 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing SystemsCity Lights are space-efficient fisheye techniques that provide contextual views along the borders of windows and subwindows that describe unseen objects in all directions. We present a family of techniques that use a range of graphical dimensions to ...
Applying Guidelines for the Design of Distortions on Focus+Context Interfaces
AVI '16: Proceedings of the International Working Conference on Advanced Visual InterfacesDistortion-based visualization techniques allow users to examine focused regions of a multiscale space at high scales but preserve their contextual information. However, the distortion can come at the coast of confusion, disorientation and impairment of ...
The Pattern is in the Details: An Evaluation of Interaction Techniques for Locating, Searching, and Contextualizing Details in Multivariate Matrix Visualizations
CHI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsMatrix visualizations are widely used to display large-scale network, tabular, set, or sequential data. They typically only encode a single value per cell, e.g., through color. However, this can greatly limit the visualizations’ utility when exploring ...
Reviews
Claudiu Popescu
This research paper analyzes detail visualization in user interfaces. It is a scientific work, with over 100 references, intended for user interface specialists and programmers. The paper studies interface efficiency. The interfaces cannot use the full capabilities of humans; there are limitations due to technical constraints. Some techniques, such as scrolling, are useful, but they introduce discontinuity. After reviewing previous research, Cockburn et al. present four different techniques for displaying details of an image. The first is the overview detail method-for example, the Google Maps display of a small selected area, with the full region displayed in a corner. Another example is the use of thumbnails in PowerPoint to display small images of slides, together with the big display of the current slide. The second method is zooming; here, the authors discuss the difficulty of using shortcut keys, animation, and automatic zooming. The third method is seamless focus in context, also known as fisheye. This method distorts an image to provide both a high-level overview and details of a particular area. The same technique is used in integrated development environments (IDEs) to display only the important part of a program, by hiding comments, function definitions, and imports (in Java). Finally, the fourth method uses cue-based techniques. Unlike the previous methods, these techniques do not modify the size of the image, but blur the unimportant zones. The second half of the paper is an in-depth comparison of various systems that implement these methods. This part includes many references. Finally, the summary shows that no method is ideal. It presents brief conclusions regarding use, for each method. The paper is a thorough survey of the field, with extensive use of references. It covers the area well and provides some good conclusions. Online Computing Reviews Service
Access critical reviews of Computing literature here
Become a reviewer for Computing Reviews.
Comments