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 The Aquabrowser |
CHAPTER
6
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 Visual Thesaurus |
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MDS-INTERACTIVEA review of current information visualization systems showed them to be rigid in their presentation, to be lacking overview and to be limited in depicting the actual meaning of the information. To overcome these shortcomings a new interaction technique, called MDS-Interactive, was developed. Using this technique the user browses a large database of objects by interacting with a small set of samples, which are shown in a layout which expresses the similarities between these samples. This layout is dynamically created using a Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) algorithm, which arranges the samples in such a way that the distances between pairs of samples express their (dis)similarities according to a similarity criterion. The main interactions are removing samples that have little meaning for the user, adjusting the weight of the similarity criterion, and calling up new samples from the database. While performing these actions, the layout is continuously adjusted to best reflect the similarity relations in the sample set. Using the ‘research through design’ approach several prototypes, all rich in both design quality and user experience, were built to test this new query technique. Evaluations with potential users showed it to have a high potential as an interaction method for accessing large information collections. |
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| ProductWorld:
Shockwave |
PRODUCTWORLDThe next step involved integrating the two-step indexing procedure,
which was established through the organizing experiment, with the
MDS-Interactive technique into a new tool named ProductWorld. Again,
a fully functional prototype was built. In ProductWorld the designer
enters product samples into the database by positioning them into
a two-dimensional area in such a way that their relative positions
express their perceived similarities regarding a specific criterion.
Thus product types are being established consisting of samples that
share certain features. Subsequently, the designer can identify
product types with a textual label that typifies the characteristics
of the type without having to attach keywords to each sample individually.
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ProductWorld:
Shockwave |
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