ResearchWave: an ambient visualization for providing awareness of research activities

Authors:
Uta Hinrichs;Danyel Fisher;Nathalie Henry Riche
Affiliations:
University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada;Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA;Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA
Venue:
Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems
Year:
2010

Citing 6
Cited 2

Answer Garden: a tool for growing organizational memory

COCS '90 Proceedings of the ACM SIGOIS and IEEE CS TC-OA conference on Office information systems
Ambient Displays: Turning Architectural Space into an Interface between People and Digital Information

CoBuild '98 Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Cooperative Buildings, Integrating Information, Organization, and Architecture
Artifacts of the Presence Era: Using Information Visualization to Create an Evocative Souvenir

INFOVIS '04 Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization
A taxonomy of ambient information systems: four patterns of design

Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces
TIMELINES: Tag clouds and the case for vernacular visualization

interactions - Changing energy use through design
Imprint, a community visualization of printer data: designing for open-ended engagement on sustainability

Proceedings of the 2008 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work

The bohemian bookshelf: supporting serendipitous book discoveries through information visualization

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
The LunchTable: a multi-user, multi-display system for information sharing in casual group interactions

Proceedings of the 2012 International Symposium on Pervasive Displays

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

The goal of a research institution is, ultimately, to share and disseminate knowledge. Yet the sheer volume of information produced by large institutions makes it challenging to keep track of the vast knowledge within. Information on who knows what is often scattered across multiple sources and media. Expertise tracking systems allow users to search for people who know answers, but do not support serendipitous discovery. To help visitors and researchers alike develop awareness of research activities, we have designed ResearchWave---a large-display ambient visualization, installed in the social spaces of a research institution. ResearchWave represents information on research activities in a lightweight and aesthetically pleasing manner. Research-Wave is based on a "walk up and use" approach: it uses multiple levels of visual encodings to engage people while allowing them to learn more with each novel encounter. In this paper, we report our design process, first prototype and lessons learned from initial user feedback.