Interaction techniques
Visual Analytics for Linguists
ESSLLI 2014
Chris Culy
7 August 2014
Interaction is:
- the key to success for exploration
- often important for comprehension/analysis
- can be useful for communication/presentation
Information seeking mantra
Overview first, zoom, details on demand
General techniques (1)
- Tooltips
"title" attribute in html/svg, lots of other tools, e.g. jQuery plugins, other libraries, etc.
- Pan and zoom
An issue: how to do pan and zoom.
- Panning: panning by dragging (but cf. problem with DoubleTreeJS)
- Zooming: scrollwheel or "flick", but not all computers have these
- A control could be an alternative means. e.g. in maps:
zoom only or
both pan and zoom
General techniques (2)
- Animation
Animation can be useful in helping users keep oriented when visualization changes. See some discussion and a D3 example here
- Fisheye
Mousing over or selecting an area makes it larger and/or other areas smaller. The level of interest determines the scaling. Explanation and D3 examples here
Techniques more specific to InfoVis (1)
- Semantic zoom (aka level of detail)
Different amounts or types of information are shown depending on the level of zoom.
A map example No roads are shown at this zoom. The more you zoom in, the more roads (and other features) you see.
- Lens
A lens provides more detail (or another view) for a selected area of the visualization
An overlay example (Java applet) and
more like that one (Flash).
One with multiple lenses, more like the original idea from Xerox PARC
Techniques more specific to InfoVis (2)
- Coordinated views
Multiple views of the same data, where changes via interaction in one view are reflected in the other view(s).
A graph example (Java). Voyant tools uses this technique.
- Focus + context
A type of coordinated view where the user can "zoom" on a part of the data and still keep track of the big picture.
Simple D3 example
- Brushing and linking
Selecting (brushing) some data selects the same/similar/related data, either in the same view or in coordinated view.
See pages 3 and 4 here. Another one here