Ulrike Kister

A Survey on Interactive Lenses in Visualization

Since their introduction in the early nineties, Magic Lenses have attracted much interest. Especially in the realm of visualization, the elegance of using a virtual interactive lens to provide an alternative visual representation of a selected part of the data is highly valued. In this report, we survey the literature on interactive lenses in the context of visualization. Our survey (1) takes a look at how lenses are defined and what properties characterize them, (2) reviews existing lenses for different types of data and tasks, and (3) illustrates the technologies employed to display lenses and to interact with them. Based on our review, we identify challenges and unsolved problems to be addressed in future research.

BodyLenses: Embodied Magic Lenses and Personal Territories for Wall Displays

Magic lenses are popular tools to provide locally altered views of visual data. In this paper, we introduce the concept of BodyLenses, special kinds of magic lenses for wall displays that are mainly controlled by body interactions. After motivating the rationale for body-centric lenses, we present a comprehensive design space of BodyLenses, where we analyse fundamental aspects such as appearance, function, interaction and use in multi-user contexts. Within that space, we investigated and implemented a number of design alternatives and propose solutions for lens positioning, dynamic shape modification, distance-based parameter mappings and the use of BodyLenses as portable tool belts. We demonstrate the practicality of our novel concepts with four realised application scenarios. With this work, we hope to lay the foundation for future research and systems based on body-driven lenses.

Interactive Lenses for Visualization: An Extended Survey

The elegance of using virtual interactive lenses to provide alternative visual representations for selected regions of interest is highly valued, especially in the realm of visualization. Today, more than 50 lens techniques are known in the closer context of visualization, far more in related fields. In this paper, we extend our previous survey on interactive lenses for visualization. We propose a definition and a conceptual model of lenses as extensions of the classic visualization pipeline. An extensive review of the literature covers lens techniques for different types of data and different user tasks and also includes the technologies employed to display lenses and to interact with them. We introduce a taxonomy of lenses for visualization and illustrate its utility by dissecting in detail a multi‐touch lens for exploring large graph layouts. As a conclusion of our review, we identify challenges and unsolved problems to be addressed in future research.

tPad: designing transparent-display mobile interactions

As a novel class of mobile devices with rich interaction capabilities we introduce tPads -- transparent display tablets. tPads are the result of a systematic design investigation into the ways and benefits of interacting with transparent mobiles which goes beyond traditional mobile interactions and augmented reality (AR) applications. Through a user-centered design process we explored interaction techniques for transparent-display mobiles and classified them into four categories: overlay, dual display & input, surface capture and model-based interactions. We investigated the technical feasibility of such interactions by designing and building two touch-enabled semi-transparent tablets called tPads and a range of tPad applications. Further, a user study shows that tPad interactions applied to everyday mobile tasks (application switching and image capture) outperform current mobile interactions and were preferred by users. Our hands-on design process and experimental evaluation demonstrate that transparent displays provide valuable interaction opportunities for mobile devices.

T4 - transparent and translucent tangibles on tabletops

In many cases, Tangible User Interfaces allow the manipulation of digital content with physical objects recognized by an interactive tabletop. Usually, such tangible objects are made of opaque wood or synthetic materials, thereby occluding the display. In this paper, we systematically investigate the promising potential of tangibles entirely made of transparent or translucent materials. Besides visualizing content directly below a manipulable tangible, transparent objects also facilitate direct touch interaction with the content below, dynamic illumination and glowing effects. We propose a comprehensive design space for transparent tangibles on tabletops based on a thorough review of existing work. By reporting on our own experiments and prototypes, we address several gaps in this design space, regarding aspects of both interaction and visualization. These include the illumination of tangibles as well as the precise input with transparent tangibles for which we also present the promising results of an initial user study. Finally, benefits and shortcomings of transparent tangibles are discussed and resulting design considerations are presented.

GraSp: Combining Spatially-aware Mobile Devices and a Display Wall for Graph Visualization and Interaction

Going beyond established desktop interfaces, researchers have begun re‐thinking visualization approaches to make use of alternative display environments and more natural interaction modalities. In this paper, we investigate how spatially‐aware mobile displays and a large display wall can be coupled to support graph visualization and interaction. For that purpose, we distribute typical visualization views of classic node‐link and matrix representations between displays. The focus of our work lies in novel interaction techniques that enable users to work with personal mobile devices in combination with the wall. We devised and implemented a comprehensive interaction repertoire that supports basic and advanced graph exploration and manipulation tasks, including selection, details‐on‐demand, focus transitions, interactive lenses, and data editing. A qualitative study has been conducted to identify strengths and weaknesses of our techniques. Feedback showed that combining mobile devices and a wall‐sized display is useful for diverse graph‐related tasks. We also gained valuable insights regarding the distribution of visualization views and interactive tools among the combined displays.

Multi-Touch Manipulation of Magic Lenses for Information Visualization

We introduce touch-enabled magic lenses that can be manipulated and parametrized through fluent interactions. Interaction with lenses for information visualization and data exploration has mostly been limited to single-user, single-function lenses. In this work, we present our prototype on lenses where lens function, parameters and combination of functions can be manipulated using fluent touch interaction. To achieve this, our tool consists of a widget-based approach for novice users as well as a set of continuous gestures for expert users. Additionally, we support the combination of lenses and thereby create a multi-purpose lens tool.

MultiLens: Fluent Interaction with Multi-Functional Multi-Touch Lenses for Information Visualization

Interactive lenses have proven to be useful for many visualization applications where exploratory analysis is a primary task. Up to now, interaction with lenses is mostly limited to single-user, single-function lenses operated by mouse, keyboard and traditional parameter menus. To overcome these limitations, we propose MultiLens, touch-enabled magic lenses for fluently manipulating functions, parameters, and combinations of lenses on interactive surfaces. We contribute a novel multi-touch menu technique for magic lenses using a widget-based approach with a drag-snap slider for relative parameter adjustment. We also propose a continuous gesture set for rapidly changing lenses and their primary parameters in one seamless phrase. In addition, by supporting the combination of various lens functions, we create a generic multi-purpose lens tool. We illustrate our approach by investigating and implementing the concepts for the field of graph exploration. The prototype was evaluated in a user study with 22 participants comparing it to traditional parameter menus operated with both mouse and touch.

Combining Timeline and Graph Visualization

Timelines are as important for presenting temporal data as node-link diagrams are relevant for displaying graphs and relations in general. Yet, both are rarely combined. We present Time Shadows to precisely indicate a nodes place in time, revealing associated temporal data and relations. We also introduce Time Beads. Created as a focus and context interaction technique for time-based graphs, Time Beads allow to continuously or discretely change the level of detail and to set multiple arbitrary focus regions if needed. We implemented both techniques in a prototype and conducted an initial user study.

Presenting Business Data: Challenges during Board Meetings in Multi-Display Environments

In this work, we discuss important challenges arising when presenting business data in board meetings. After firstly considering the specific characteristic of board meetings, we have identified challenges concerning the following four topics emerging from the multi-display setup of (digital) boardrooms as well as the social situation in those board meetings: Control Presentations (Interaction), Content Presentation (Visualization), Discussion with Audience (Communication), and Remote Presence. Focusing on selected challenges, we propose first ideas how existing HCI research can help to tackle those challenges and thus help to improve efficiency of board meetings.