Colin Ware
Abstract
Many different problems can be represented as graphs displayed in the form of node--link diagrams. However, when a graph is large it becomes visually uninterpretable because of the tangle of links. We describe a set of techniques that use motion in an interactive interface to provide effective access to larger graphs. Touching a node with the mouse cursor causes that node and the subgraph of closely connected nodes to oscillate. We argue from perceptual principles that this should be a more effective way of interactively highlighting a subgraph than more conventional static methods. The MEGraph system was developed to gain experience with different forms of motion highlighting. Based on positive feedback, three experiments were carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of motion highlighting for specific tasks. All three showed motion to be more effective than static highlighting, both in increasing the speed of response for a variety of visual queries, and in reducing errors. We argue that motion highlighting can be a valuable technique in applications that require users to understand large graphs.
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Digital Library
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Index Terms
- Motion to support rapid interactive queries on node--link diagrams
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Reviews
Licia Calvi
The issue of using motion to visualize a graph is discussed in this paper. This technique is claimed to be particularly useful in the presence of large graphs. The paper reports on three experiments where different forms of motion, combined with different forms of link or node highlighting, were tested. The results show that motion highlighting is very effective in graph interaction, when it is particularly large. Considering that using graphs as devices to visualize technical information is a very common practice, and that their design is deeply grounded in perceptual and neurophysiological theories, this paper presents very interesting and useful evidence to support the further development of graph interaction. Online Computing Reviews Service
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