research-article

Free access

Improving revisitation in graphs through static spatial features

Authors:

Niklas ElmqvistAuthors Info & Claims

GI '11: Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2011

Pages 175 - 182

Published: 25 May 2011 Publication History

Abstract

People generally remember locations in visual spaces with respect to spatial features and landmarks. Geographical maps provide many spatial features and hence are easy to remember. However, graphs are often visualized as node-link diagrams with few spatial features. We evaluate whether adding static spatial features to node-link diagrams will help in graph revisitation. We discuss three strategies for embellishing a graph and evaluate each in a user study. In our first study, we evaluate how to best add background features to a graph. In the second, we encode position using node size and color. In the third and final study, we take the best techniques from the first and second study, as well as shapes added to the graph as virtual landmarks, to find the best combination of spatial features for graph revisitation. We discuss the user study results and give our recommendations for design of graph visualization software.

References

[1]

F. Attneave. Symmetry, information, and memory for patterns. The American Journal of Psychology, 68(2):209--222, 1955.

[2]

S. Bateman, R. L. Mandryk, C. Gutwin, A. Genest, D. McDine, and C. A. Brooks. Useful junk?: The effects of visual embellishment on comprehension and memorability of charts. In Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 2573--2582, 2010.

Digital Library

[3]

S. Borgatti, M. Everett, and L. Freeman. UCINET. http://www.analytictech.com/ucinet/. Last accessed December 2010.

[4]

C. Collins, G. Penn, and M. S. T. Carpendale. Bubble sets: Revealing set relations with isocontours over existing visualizations. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 15(6):1009--1016, 2009.

Digital Library

[5]

M. P. Czerwinski, M. van Dantzich, G. Robertson, and H. Hoffman. The contribution of thumbnail image, mouse-over text and spatial location memory to web page retrieval in 3D. In Proceedings of INTERACT, pages 163--170, 1999.

[6]

R. P. Darken and J. L. Sibert. Navigating large virtual spaces. Int. Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 8(1):49--71, Oct. 1995.

Digital Library

[7]

R. P. Darken and J. L. Silbert. A toolset for navigation in virtual environments. In Proceedings of ACM User Interface Software and Technology, pages 157--165, 1993.

Digital Library

[8]

G. W. Furnas. Generalized fisheye views. In Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 16--23, 1986.

Digital Library

[9]

S. E. Goldin and P. W. Thorndyke. Spatial learning and reasoning skill. In Spatial Orientation: Theory, Research, and Application. Plenum Press, 1983.

[10]

S. Havre, E. Hetzler, P. Whitney, and L. Nowell. ThemeRiver: Visualizing thematic changes in large document collections. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 8(1):9--20, 2002.

Digital Library

[11]

I. Herman, G. Melançon, and M. S. Marshall. Graph visualization and navigation in information visualization: A survey. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 6(1):24--43, Jan./Mar. 2000.

Digital Library

[12]

K. Hornbák, B. B. Bederson, and C. Plaisant. Navigation patterns and usability of zoomable user interfaces with and without an overview. ACM ToCHI, 9(4):362--389, 2002.

Digital Library

[13]

T. Igarashi and K. Hinckley. Speed-dependent automatic zooming for browsing large documents. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, pages 139--148, 2000.

Digital Library

[14]

B. Lee, C. Plaisant, C. S. Parr, J.-D. Fekete, and N. Henry. Task taxonomy for graph visualization. In Proc. of BELIV, pages 82--86, 2006.

Digital Library

[15]

A. Noack. An energy model for visual graph clustering. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Graph Drawing, pages 425--436, 2003.

[16]

L. T. Nowell, R. S. Schulman, and D. Hix. Graphical encoding for information visualization: An empirical study. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization, pages 43--50, 2002.

Digital Library

[17]

R. Passini. Wayfinding in Architecture. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, NY, 1984.

[18]

K. Perlin and D. Fox. Pad: An alternative approach to the computer interface. In Computer Graphics (ACM SIGGRAPH '93 Proceedings), pages 57--64, 1993.

Digital Library

[19]

A. E. Richardson, D. R. Montello, and M. Hegarty. Spatial knowledge acquisition from maps and from navigation in real and virtual environments. Memory & Cognition, 27(4):741--750, 1999.

[20]

G. Robertson, M. Czerwinski, K. Larson, D. C. Robbins, D. Thiel, and M. van Dantzich. Data Mountain: Using spatial memory for document management. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, pages 153--162, 1998.

Digital Library

[21]

A. W. Siegel and S. H. White. The development of spatial representations of large-scale environments. In Advances in child development and behavior, pages 9--55. Academic Press, 1975.

[22]

A. Skopik and C. Gutwin. Improving revisitation in fisheye views with visit wear. In Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 771--780, 2005.

Digital Library

Cited By

Archambault DPurchase H(2016)Can animation support the visualisation of dynamic graphs?Information Sciences: an International Journal10.1016/j.ins.2015.04.017330:C(495-509)Online publication date: 10-Feb-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ins.2015.04.017
Fowler JJohnson TSimonetto PSchneider MAcedo CKobourov SLazos LWhitley KEngle SHarrison LFischer FPrigent N(2014)IMapProceedings of the Eleventh Workshop on Visualization for Cyber Security10.1145/2671491.2671501(80-87)Online publication date: 10-Nov-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2671491.2671501
Alper BHenry Riche NHollerer TJones MPalanque PSchmidt AGrossman T(2014)Structuring the spaceProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2556288.2557112(1825-1834)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2556288.2557112
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Improving revisitation in graphs through static spatial features
1. Computing methodologies
  1. Computer graphics
    1. Graphics systems and interfaces
2. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Interaction devices
      1. Graphics input devices
    2. Interaction paradigms

Recommendations

Improving revisitation in fisheye views with visit wear
CHI '05: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

The distortion caused by an interactive fisheye lens can make it difficult for people to remember items and locations in the data space. In this paper we introduce the idea of visit wear - a visual representation of the places that the user has ...
Collapsible graphs and Hamiltonian connectedness of line graphs

Thomassen conjectured that every 4-connected line graph is Hamiltonian. Chen and Lai [Z.-H. Chen, H.-J. Lai, Reduction techniques for super-Eulerian graphs and related topics-an update, in: Ku Tung-Hsin (Ed.), Combinatorics and Graph Theory, vol. 95, ...
Hierarchical Edge Bundles: Visualization of Adjacency Relations in Hierarchical Data

A compound graph is a frequently encountered type of data set. Relations are given between items, and a hierarchy is defined on the items as well. We present a new method for visualizing such compound graphs. Our approach is based on visually bundling ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Guide Proceedings

GI '11: Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2011

May 2011

247 pages

ISBN:9781450306935

Program Chairs:
Stephen Brooks
Dalhousie University, Canada
,
Pourang Irani
University of Manitoba, Canada

Publisher

Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society

Waterloo, Canada

Publication History

Published: 25 May 2011

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 206 of 508 submissions, 41%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

4
Total Citations
View Citations
197
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)51
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)13

Reflects downloads up to 04 Feb 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Archambault DPurchase H(2016)Can animation support the visualisation of dynamic graphs?Information Sciences: an International Journal10.1016/j.ins.2015.04.017330:C(495-509)Online publication date: 10-Feb-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ins.2015.04.017
Fowler JJohnson TSimonetto PSchneider MAcedo CKobourov SLazos LWhitley KEngle SHarrison LFischer FPrigent N(2014)IMapProceedings of the Eleventh Workshop on Visualization for Cyber Security10.1145/2671491.2671501(80-87)Online publication date: 10-Nov-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2671491.2671501
Alper BHenry Riche NHollerer TJones MPalanque PSchmidt AGrossman T(2014)Structuring the spaceProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2556288.2557112(1825-1834)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2556288.2557112
Archambault DPurchase H(2012)Mental map preservation helps user orientation in dynamic graphsProceedings of the 20th international conference on Graph Drawing10.1007/978-3-642-36763-2_42(475-486)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-642-36763-2_42

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Figures

Tables

Media

View Table of Conten