A toolkit of mechanism and context independent widgets

Most human-computer interfaces are designed to run on a static platform (e.g. a workstation with a monitor) in a static environment (e.g. an office). However, with mobile devices becoming ubiquitous and capable of running applications similar to those found on static devices, it is no longer valid to design static interfaces. This paper describes a user-interface architecture which allows interactors to be flexible about the way they are presented. This flexibility is defined by the different input and output mechanisms used. An interactor may use different mechanisms depending upon their suitability in the current context, user preference and the resources available for presentation using that mechanism

Layout of Multiple Views for Volume Visualization: A User Study

Abstract. Volume visualizations can have drastically different appearances when viewed using a variety of transfer functions. A problem then occurs in trying to organize many different views on one screen. We conducted a user study of four layout techniques for these multiple views. We timed participants as they separated different aspects of volume data for both time-invariant and time-variant data using one of four different layout schemes. The layout technique had no impact on performance when used with time-invariant data. With time-variant data, however, the multiple view layouts all resulted in better times than did a single view interface. Surprisingly, different layout techniques for multiple views resulted in no noticeable difference in user performance. In this paper, we describe our study and present the results, which could be used in the design of future volume visualization software to improve the productivity of the scientists who use it

A grammatical specification of human-computer dialogue

The Seeheim Model of human-computer interaction partitions an interactive application into a user-interface, a dialogue controller and the application itself. One of the formal techniques of implementing the dialogue controller is based on context-free grammars and automata. In this work, we modify an off-the-shelf compiler generator (YACC) to generate the dialogue controller. The dialogue controller is then integrated into the popular X-window system, to create an interactive-application generator. The actions of the user drive the automaton, which in turn controls the application

Guide Me in Analysis: A Framework for Guidance Designers

Guidance is an emerging topic in the field of visual analytics. Guidance can support users in pursuing their analytical goals more efficiently and help in making the analysis successful. However, it is not clear how guidance approaches should be designed and what specific factors should be considered for effective support. In this paper, we approach this problem from the perspective of guidance designers. We present a framework comprising requirements and a set of specific phases designers should go through when designing guidance for visual analytics. We relate this process with a set of quality criteria we aim to support with our framework, that are necessary for obtaining a suitable and effective guidance solution. To demonstrate the practical usability of our methodology, we apply our framework to the design of guidance in three analysis scenarios and a design walk-through session. Moreover, we list the emerging challenges and report how the framework can be used to design guidance solutions that mitigate these issues

Next generation software environments : principles, problems, and research directions

The past decade has seen a burgeoning of research and development in software environments. Conferences have been devoted to the topic of practical environments, journal papers produced, and commercial systems sold. Given all the activity, one might expect a great deal of consensus on issues, approaches, and techniques. This is not the case, however. Indeed, the term "environment" is still used in a variety of conflicting ways. Nevertheless substantial progress has been made and we are at least nearing consensus on many critical issues.The purpose of this paper is to characterize environments, describe several important principles that have emerged in the last decade or so, note current open problems, and describe some approaches to these problems, with particular emphasis on the activities of one large-scale research program, the Arcadia project. Consideration is also given to two related topics: empirical evaluation and technology transition. That is, how can environments and their constituents be evaluated, and how can new developments be moved effectively into the production sector

Caring, sharing widgets: a toolkit of sensitive widgets

Although most of us communicate using multiple sensory modalities in our lives, and many of our computers are similarly capable of multi-modal interaction, most human-computer interaction is predominantly in the visual mode. This paper describes a toolkit of widgets that are capable of presenting themselves in multiple modalities, but further are capapble of adapting their presentation to suit the contexts and environments in which they are used. This is of increasing importance as the use of mobile devices becomes ubiquitous

Improving Usability of Interactive Graphics Specification and Implementation with Picking Views and Inverse Transformations

Specifying and programming graphical interactions are difficult tasks, notably because designers have difficulties to express the dynamics of the interaction. This paper shows how the MDPC architecture improves the usability of the specification and the implementation of graphical interaction. The architecture is based on the use of picking views and inverse transforms from the graphics to the data. With three examples of graphical interaction, we show how to express them with the architecture, how to implement them, and how this improves programming usability. Moreover, we show that it enables implementing graphical interaction without a scene graph. This kind of code prevents from errors due to cache consistency management

Obvious: a meta-toolkit to encapsulate information visualization toolkits. One toolkit to bind them all

This article describes “Obvious”: a meta-toolkit that abstracts and encapsulates information visualization toolkits implemented in the Java language. It intends to unify their use and postpone the choice of which concrete toolkit(s) to use later-on in the development of visual analytics applications. We also report on the lessons we have learned when wrapping popular toolkits with Obvious, namely Prefuse, the InfoVis Toolkit, partly Improvise, JUNG and other data management libraries. We show several examples on the uses of Obvious, how the different toolkits can be combined, for instance sharing their data models. We also show how Weka and RapidMiner, two popular machine-learning toolkits, have been wrapped with Obvious and can be used directly with all the other wrapped toolkits. We expect Obvious to start a co-evolution process: Obvious is meant to evolve when more components of Information Visualization systems will become consensual. It is also designed to help information visualization systems adhere to the best practices to provide a higher level of interoperability and leverage the domain of visual analytics

Inviwo -- A Visualization System with Usage Abstraction Levels

The complexity of today's visualization applications demands specific visualization systems tailored for the development of these applications. Frequently, such systems utilize levels of abstraction to improve the application development process, for instance by providing a data flow network editor. Unfortunately, these abstractions result in several issues, which need to be circumvented through an abstraction-centered system design. Often, a high level of abstraction hides low level details, which makes it difficult to directly access the underlying computing platform, which would be important to achieve an optimal performance. Therefore, we propose a layer structure developed for modern and sustainable visualization systems allowing developers to interact with all contained abstraction levels. We refer to this interaction capabilities as usage abstraction levels, since we target application developers with various levels of experience. We formulate the requirements for such a system, derive the desired architecture, and present how the concepts have been exemplary realized within the Inviwo visualization system. Furthermore, we address several specific challenges that arise during the realization of such a layered architecture, such as communication between different computing platforms, performance centered encapsulation, as well as layer-independent development by supporting cross layer documentation and debugging capabilities