Improving memorability in fisheye views

Abstract

Interactive fisheye views use distortion to show both local detail and global context in the same display space. Although fisheyes allow the presentation and inspection of large data sets, the distortion effects can cause problems for users. One such problem is lack of memorability – the ability to find and go back to objects and features in the data. This thesis examines the possibility of improving the memorability of fisheye views by adding historical information to the visualization. The historical information is added visually through visit wear, an extension of the concepts of edit wear and read wear. This will answer the question “Where have I been?” through visual instead of cognitive processing by overlaying new visual information on the data to indicate a user’s recent interaction history. This thesis describes general principles of visibility in a space that is distorted by a fisheye lens and defines some parameters of the design space of visit wear. Finally, a test system that applied the principles was evaluated, and showed that adding visit wear to a fisheye system improved the memorability of the information space.