Showing papers by "Staffan Björk published in 2000"

Redefining the focus and context of focus+context visualization

Abstract: The increasing diversity of computers, especially among small mobile devices such as mobile phones and PDAs, raise new questions about information visualization techniques developed for the desktop computer. Using a series of examples ranging from applications for ordinary desktop displays to web-browsers and other applications for PDAs, we describe how a focus+context technique, Flip Zooming, is changed due to the situation it is used in. Based on these examples, we discuss how the use of "focus" and "context" in focus+context techniques change in order to fit new areas of use for information visualization.

POWERVIEW: Using Information Links and Information Views to Navigate and Visualize Information on Small Displays

Abstract: PowerView is a PDA application designed to support people with situational information, primarily during conversations and meetings with other people. PowerView was designed to address a number of issues in interface design concerning both information visualization and interaction on small, mobile devices. In terms of information visualization, the system was required to provide the user with a single integrated information system that enabled quick access to related information once an object of interest had been selected. In terms of interaction, the system was required to enable easy and efficient information retrieval, including single-handed use of the device. These problems were addressed by introducing Information Links and Information Views. An evaluation of the application against the standard application suite bundle of the PDA, a Casio Cassiopeia E-11, proved the interfaces equivalent in usability even though the PowerView application uses a novel interface paradigm and the test subjects were given no training time with the system.

Hierarchical flip zooming: enabling parallel exploration of hierarchical visualizations

Abstract: This paper describes hierarchical Flip Zooming, a focus+context visualization technique for hierarchical information sets. It allows for independent focus+context views at each node of the hierarchy and enables parallel exploration of different branches of the hierarchy. Visualization, navigation and interaction in the Flip Zooming technique is described as well as how the technique fits into existing models of information visualization. Examples of applications using the technique are given.

PowerView: structured access to integrated information on small screens

Abstract: The PowerView application shows how non-standard graphical user interfaces, together with the introduction of links between data of different types, can ease the interaction with digital information on small mobile devices. The information visualization technique used provides a structured and efficient way of displaying information and allows navigation using only four operators. Links between data entries further improve the system by presenting related information together, even when the data belongs to different information domains, User evaluation has shown that the system is as easy to use by novice users as systems based on well-known user interface models.

Flip Zooming. The development of an information visualization technique

Abstract: This thesis describes the development of a Focus+Context information visualization technique called Flip Zooming. Based on two initial examples of the technique, the work reported here expands the description and functionality of the technique by the development of a number of applications as well as by some theoretical contributions. The thesis consists of six papers and a frame. The first paper describes The Digital Variants Browser, which supports comparative studies of variants of texts. The second paper, Hierarchical Flip Zooming, describes how the technique can be generalized to support hierarchical visualization by use of nested instances of Flip Zooming. The third paper describes WEST (a WEB Browser for Small Terminals), an application of Flip Zooming for the visualization of web pages on hand-held computers. The fourth paper, PowerView, describes another application designed for hand-held computers; this application supports tasks that require several different types of information. The fifth paper introduces a framework for describing Flip Zooming and other Focus+Context visualizations as higher-order visualizations. The sixth paper identifies preconceptions about Focus+Context techniques that have become apparent during the work on Flip Zooming, and shows how these preconceptions can be transgressed to create novel visualizations. The frame relates the Flip Zooming technique to other information visualization techniques and describes the development of the technique by using Mackay and Fayard's model for research within Human-Computer Interaction. It concludes by presenting specific guidelines for developing future Flip Zooming applications, as well as general guidelines for developing other information visualization techniques.

Privacy and information integrity in wearable computing and ubiquitous computing

Abstract: Wearable and ubiquitous computing are two computing paradigms with different views on privacy and information integrity. We present terms that help provide a framework for understanding these, and describe a prototype device that combines attributes from both, challenging presumptions about these paradigms. By looking at narrow application areas, we argue that it is possible to find applications that merge wearable computing and ubiquitous computing.