3D gesture-based exploration and searchin document collections

Abstract

This paper describes an approach towards the interaction with 3D representationsof large document collections. The goal was to provide the user with ahighly dynamic environment in which even the very mapping strategy to positiondocuments in space can be adjusted by the user depending on the specific task athand, on his preferences, or on the context. A modification to the FDP algorithmis proposed, as well as a new gesture-based interaction paradigm in which the usercan explore and search information in the collection just by simple hand movements.An experimental user evaluation was carried on to investigate the impact ofthe proposed approach on the precision of the mental model built by users throughexploration, on the effectiveness in information search tasks, and on the generaluser satisfaction and perception of utility