Improving memorability in fisheye views

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Date
2004-08-20Author
Skopik, Amy Caroline
Type
ThesisDegree Level
MastersMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
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.
Degree
Master of Science (M.Sc.)Department
Computer ScienceProgram
Computer ScienceSupervisor
Gutwin, CarlCommittee
Saucier, Deborah M.; Kusalik, Anthony J. (Tony); Schneider, KevinCopyright Date
August 2004Subject
memorability
spatial memory
fisheye usability
focus+context techniques
Fisheye views
edit wear
visit wear